Megaman Battle Network Omega
by TheSoundDefense
Summary: The story of Dr. Wily's ultimate triumph and ultimate failure...Megaman Omega. This story will eventually be included in New Megaman Battle Network and has stopped updating on its own.
1. Chapter 1: The Gamma Designation

Megaman Battle Network Omega

Chapter 1: The Gamma Designation

Lan stared hard at the computer screen. He had to concentrate now; failure was not an option, not with all the time he had invested. He concentrated intensely, trying desperately to determine the answer...he was so close...

"You can do it, Lan!" Megaman encouraged. "Just focus! You can finish this!"

Lan nodded; he could do this, he had to do it...he just needed a little more time...

"Eureka!" He grinned a victory grin and typed in his answer: 13. The homework program gave a small fanfare to acknowledge that he was done, then closed itself. Lan leaned back in his chair. "Piece of cake!"

"And all it took you was an hour and a half," Megaman remarked sarcastically, but he wasn't too upset. Anytime Lan actually did his homework was no time to be critical.

Lan leaped up from his chair and sped down the stairs, waving bye to his mother before grabbing his shoes and running out the door. "Let's go see the big surprise that Dad has at his office!" he exclaimed, as he pulled the wheels out of his shoes and began to skate his way to SciLab.

----------

Lan had learned that his dad had a surprise for him earlier in the day. He had been practically snoozing off during a particularly boring class when his PET notified him of e-mail. Looking at it secretly under his desk, he saw his father had a surprise he was going to unveil later in the day, at his office; Lan, however, had to have finished his homework before coming to see it. After a quick detention for doing e-mail during class, he had rushed home to get it done, and thus he found himself speeding toward SciLab later that day.

"What do you think your dad has at his office?" Megaman wondered excitedly. "Maybe it's some awesome new BattleChip!"

"Nah." Lan shook his head. "I bet it's an awesome new PET! With more storage and features and stuff..." Lan wondered in his mind as he sped down the street, and eventually walked through the doors to SciLab.

People were everywhere; business suits were filling rooms and corridors in all directions. This is bigger than I thought, Lan figured as he wove his way around bigwigs to try and get to his dad's office. Eventually he made it to the elevator, going up and running through the door to his dad's office.

"Dad!" Lan called out, looking around the office. At first glance, he was nowhere to be found. "Dad!" Lan called again, checking in the more discreet areas of the office, but he was indeed nowhere. Lan slumped into his dad's office chair, and spotted a note left on his desk, addressed to Lan. He picked it up and read it aloud for Megaman's benefit:

"Lan - I'm in the presentation hall, getting ready to unveil my big surprise. The presentation starts at 5; come on down and take a look! - Dad"

"Well, let's get down there!" Megaman said. "That's in ten minutes, we should go see!"

Lan nodded and got up with a bit less enthusiasm, upon knowing that this special thing wasn't a gift for him. He headed back down the elevator, and made his way through a maze of blue suits until he got to the presentation hall. This was an even fuller area than before, and Lan had to look about for a good while before finding a good seat.

"Look at all these people," Megaman remarked. "With this many businessmen here, it must be a big SciLabs project that's going to be affecting a lot of businesses and computers. You may want to pay attention, Lan!"

Lan nodded impatiently; he was less concerned with what exactly was going to be seen, but was still a little interested. Nonetheless, he was in no way one to sit still for a long while, and he was anxious to get this over with. Soon, the lights dimmed, and the presentation area up front was lit up. The red curtain was soon blocked by a large white screen, for a projector, and Dr. Hikari walked onstage waving, to moderate applause; Lan perked up and listened in more closely.

Dr. Hikari tapped the microphone a couple of times with his finger before beginning to speak. "I'd like to thank you all for coming to this presentation. I promise you all you won't be disappointed, and if any of you are, I'll ask you to make a donation so we can do better next time." The crowd laughed gently, and Hikari paused to adjust his glasses before continuing.

"I'll just go right into it...we here at SciLab, through algorithm investigation, compression techniques, and other boring technobabble, have produced a newer, stronger encoding mechanism for security systems and NetNavis, with the help of our development partner, Thinking Big Industries. Following in the footsteps of Alpha and Beta, we are currently calling this the Gamma designation." He pressed a button in front of him, and a projector in the back of the room fired up, projecting "GAMMA" onto the screen in large, stylish letters. Dr. Hikari continued, pressing another button to bring up a more technical screen.

"Unlike Alpha and Beta, Gamma is leaps and bounds above its predecessors in terms of strength and effectiveness. The key point of interest, however, is that Gamma is the first such enhancement that can principally be applied to security systems." Another press, and the screen switched to a tough computer boxing with a tough Navi, and winning. The audience chuckled, and Lan listened in closer, eager to hear about the NetNavis.

"Gamma is primarily geared toward defense, so while it can be applied to NetNavis also, a Gamma-enhanced Navi won't be able to get into a Gamma-enhanced system. Nevertheless, both will have been strengthened greatly." The screen changed to a large computer tower protected by Navis with a gamma symbol on their chests. "This could allow for an additional security measure, as you can see here." At this, the lights went back up, and the projector turned off. Everyone looked around briefly, confused, before Lan's father went on.

"Instead of showing you a bunch of slides to try and convince you, we're going to give a live demonstration." The curtain parted, and behind it was a large supercomputer, with an equally large video screen next to it. "Here, we have a regularly secured supercomputer." He turned on the video screen, to show several official Navis ready to take on the security system. "Let's see how it stands up to a squad of official Navis."

The entire audience leaned in to see as the Navis began to make their way through security with ease; Lan, stuck in the back row, resorted to standing on his chair. Before too long, the security of the system had been compromised, and the Navis did a miniature victory dance before the screen was turned off. Dr. Hikari walked over to the computer and installed a disk into it, and began to type on a nearby keyboard.

"Now, I am reprogramming this computer with the new Gamma system. I will be changing nothing else about the security or the Navi team." Soon he was finished, and the screen turned back on, where the Navis were ready for round 2. This time, try as they could, they were unable to get past the system's very tough defenses, and one by one the expert Navi team was taken down. The audience applauded politely once again, and the curtain closed.

"Instead of boring you with more of a presentation, outside of this presentation hall there are some more hands-on exhibits for you to examine at your leisure. You can also talk to any of our representatives about purchasing this system for your own use if you are so inclined." Suddenly a timer appeared on the screen, powered by the projector; Hikari gestured to it. "As soon as this timer finishes, in about ten minutes time, the entire SciLab system will be converted to this new Gamma designation, and thus significantly more impossible to access. It's a show of good faith, and of our confidence in this newfound system, over everything that protected SciLab that came beore it."

Dr. Hikari adjusted his glasses once again. "On behalf of SciLab, I'd like to thank you all for coming to see this presentation, and I urge you to explore the uses of our system outside. Thank you, and have a good day."

----------

Lan walked out with the other suits, his hands in his pockets, not horribly impressed. Megaman piped up.

"Lan, what did you think of the presentation? This could mean a lot for computer safety on the Internet, I'm really interested!"

Lan shrugged in response. "I know it's important, but it just wasn't...cool. I still wish he had made some awesone new BattleChip, something I can really use in battle..." His eyebrows raised. "Hey, Megaman, you wouldn't be interested in getting an upgra-"

"Don't even think about it," Megaman interrupted. "I am quite fine with how I am now, thank you."

Lan rolled his eyes, and spied an exhibition booth that caught his interest, which he raced toward. It was entitled "Gamma Enhanced NetNavis", and it had a small computer nearby with a video screen featuring a gamma-branded Navi; this screen also had the countdown appear on it.

"Now here's something I can be interested in! Want to battle with a Gamma-enhanced Navi, Megaman?" Lan pulled out his PET and got it at the ready, as the booth attendant started typing in preparations for a quick match.

"Sure," Megaman consented. "It'll be fun to see how strong one of these Navis really is."

Lan grinned and set his PET up for battle. "You can kick any Navi's butt any day of the week, Megaman," he said, before quickly jacking in to the system, ready for battle. Megaman found himself on a large fighting arena, with the stock-built, yellow-and-black Gamma Navi on the opposite side, its dukes up. Megaman grinned, and took a fighting stance, as a counter went from 3, to 2, to 1, and then the battle began. Megaman rushed forward and started blasting with his buster, shots that the opponent easily dodged, much to Lan's surprise. The Gamma Navi then activated twin swords, one on each hand, and ran forward with amazing speed toward Megaman, slicing away; he just barely managed to dodge.

Lan, somewhat enjoying the challenge, somewhat concerned with the strength of this enemy, sent Megaman his own sword, which he tried to slice at the Gamma Navi with; it was easily parried, and a very fast-moving swordfight began. The Gamma Navi's two swords were equally matched to one from Megaman, but his advantage was growing. After another successful parry, the Gamma Navi jutted out its elbow, and managed to knock Megaman down on his back, taken by surprise. The Gamma Navi jumped, ready to strike victoriously, when the battle arena suddenly disappeared, along with any other backdrop this setting offered; the Gamma Navi fizzled and disappeared, lost with the system.

Outside of the computer, the lights all went off simultaneously in the exhibition area, and were replaced with red emergenvy lights, as well as panicked voices urging people over the loudspeaker to remain calm. All the bureaucrats were muttering nervously to one another, discussing a power outage, or a concealed attack, that may have been going on. Lan, more curious and alarmed, instantly jacked Megaman out and started running for a SciLab port.

"Lan! What's going on?" Megaman called out. "Was there a power outage or something?"

"I'm not sure!" Lan yelled back, finding a jack-in point for Megaman. "We're going to find out right now!" He whipped out his PET and aimed it for the port, instantly transporting Megaman to the cyberworld.

----------

One look around was all that was needed to know that this was no power outage; half-completed Gamma symbols dotted tall, square security structures that were partially destroyed, left and right, while viruses were tearing up the ground, and red and black covered the sky. Someone had hijacked the system in the middle of the installation, when the system was weaker. Megaman rushed forward, looking for the source of the trouble and blasting away the surprisingly weak viruses that dotted the area.

"This place is practically totaled!" he reported back to Lan. "Structures destroyed, viruses everywhere...whoever did this must destruction in this little time must be-"

Megaman didn't get to finish his thought. Something impacted him very heavily from the side, sending him flying into a half-demolished pillar. He rubbed his head as he climbed out of the rubble, looking around for his assailant. He found him quickly; a red and gold Navi marked with a V at the top of his head. He held a glowing green item in his hand, not unlike a file.

"Quickman? What are you doing here? I deleted you during the rise of Forte!"

Quickman laughed. "Yes, you did...I was salvaged by a more merciful Dr. Wily, who saw use for me in the WWW...many of my colleagues saw similar mercy." Quickman walked forward slowly, still bearing the file. "And I am not unappreciative...I will do Dr. Wily's bidding." He touched the object in his hand, and it teleported away into the cyberworld.

"What did you just do?" Megaman took a defensive stance. Quickman cackled once again.

"That was the hard copy of the Gamma program that was to be installed on this server. I have claimed it for the WWW...Dr. Wily will have great use for this. Soon, his grandest project will be complete!"

Megaman raised his eyebrows at this. "What project?"

Quickman grinned an evil grin. "It's not my place to say...it's merely my place to delete you!" As he finished speaking, three overlarge, unnatural claws sprung from his right hand, a sight that disturbed Megaman significantly. They were covered in a tattoo similar to that of Bugstyle, and commanded attention. Just as soon as they were finished extending, Quickman dashed toward Megaman and took a mighty swipe. Megaman just barely managed to dodge with a backbend; he didn't know what those claws were for, but he had no intention of being touched by them. Lan gave Megaman a much needed Crossgun as Quickman took off again, and the widespread fire caught Quickman several times. He got up, though, and dashed at Megaman once again, claws extended and ready to take a big chunk out of Megaman.

"Lan!" Megaman called out. "I need something to counter his speed with!" Megaman dove out of the way as Quickman hit his brakes and sliced, skidding to a hard stop. Megaman watched him skid like this, and got an idea. "I need an Area Steal and a Long Sword at the ready!"

"Coming right up!" Lan reported as he inserted an Area Steal and a Long Sword into his PET. Megaman didn't use either right away, instead watching and firing at Quickman as he circled around again. Quickman soon came back for one more swipe. "Now!" Megaman yelled, and he used his Area Steal to disappear just as Quickman swiped. Confused, he skidded to a hard stop right past where Megaman had been; immediately, Megaman appeared right where he had been, with Quickman in front of him, equipping his Long Sword and turning to chop Quickman clean in half.

"Yes!" Lan thrust his fist into the air with victory, as Megaman put away his sword and the two halves of Quickman fell to the ground. His breathing was staggered.

"So, this is how my service ends for now..." He laughed slowly. "It is well...I have already delivered the Gamma program to Master Wily, and soon our other source will fall right into our hands...perhaps you will see me again someday, Megaman!" He coughed, and then lay still as his body dissolved and was deleted. Megaman sighed, then warped out, back into his PET, the battle over.

----------

Ten minutes later, the system had been repaired, and all the potential customers reassured that this was not a failing of the Gamma system. As demonstrations tensely continued and the Gamma program was installed into SciLab once again, Lan found his father and reported the battle he had had with Quickman. Dr. Hikari listened intently, taking it in, growing more concerned with each word.

"Those claws...the tattoo you described is definitely not natural. I think I've heard of it before...I'll have to look into what it means." Hikari looked into Lan's PET, where Megaman was listening. "If you ever see those claws again, on another Navi, I want you to stay a good distance away from them." Megaman nodded in agreement, and Lan's father sighed.

"In any case, Wily now has the Gamma program...what havoc he could now wreak on the Net, who can say for sure." He looked at Lan as he stood up. "You and Megaman need to be extra careful when on the Net. You've foiled Wily enough times that he's going to have it out for you. I don't want you looking into things unnecessarily, do you understand?" He gave Lan a stern look, and Lan quickly nodded, thinking of how he can explore this without his father knowing. His father continued.

"You've defeated him in the past, but with this new weapon in his possession, he now has unknown power available to him...you should not be testing your strengths against him." He started for the door. "I need to go supervise the reinstallation of Gamma. You should probably go home to your mother, she's worried by now." And with that, he was gone.

Lan stretched and got up, walking toward the elevator. He and Megaman were thinking alike; Wily would have known Lan and Megaman would be present at such an event, and sending Quickman...he was trying to attack them directly after all.

"Megaman."

"Lan?"

"We're going to have to probably take care of this ourselves, you know." Lan's face was resolute.

"Probably," answered Megaman with the same resoluteness. "Do you think we can defeat him if he's powered by Gamma?"

Lan grinned his characteristic, optimistic grin. "Never know until we try, right?" And with that, he walked out of his door, back home.

Wait for MMBN: New Origins.


	2. Chapter 2: The Spread

Megaman Battle Network Omega

Chapter 2: The Spread

_Thunk._

_Thunk._

Lan and Megaman had returned home from SciLab, and Lan was now amusing himself by tossing a ball against the ceiling as he lay in bed.

"You should probably get some sleep, Lan," Megaman offered.

Lan nodded; he should've been getting sleep, it was very late, but he was far too stimulated to do so at this point. His head was filled with thought; the WWW had returned, and it was clear they wanted to assault him and Megaman directly. Not only that, but now they had the Gamma system, and those claws...what could those be? This was dangerous.

After the incident occurred, SciLab was able to successfully deter the buyers from leaving, and after showing that the real Gamma system would be invulnerable to such an attack through simulation, the exhibition continued as planned. Tomorrow, Gamma would be distrubuted to systems all over the country, making it a little safer...as long as the WWW didn't get involved again...

"Lan, you've got school tomorrow," Megaman reminded him. "You need to get up in seven hours, you really should get some sleep."

Lan nodded in agreement, still in thought. He slowly got into his PJs, turned off the lights and climbed into bed. He decided he should probably stay quiet about this; no one at school would take kindly to the news that a group bent on world domination wanted to destroy him. He rolled over and eventually fell asleep.

----------

Walking into school the next day helped Lan take his mind off things. The usual hustle and bustle of the school day was pretty distracting, and Lan was able to focus his attentions elsewhere, especially once Mayl ran up to him with big news.

"Lan!" she called. "Guess what? Yai's invited us all to a private island this weekend for a vacation! We get to see the jungle, play on the beach, it'll be so fun! Are you in?"

"I'm in!" Lan confirmed with a thumbs up. "Anything that's a vacation is good for me!" Mayl giggled and rushed off to tell Dex, who was coming through the doors. Lan walked about and got into his seat, ready to focus on schoolwork for once, if it would help him get his mind off things. This proved too big a task for him, and he was soon flicking crumbs off his desk with a pen.

"Everyone! Find your seats!" Ms. Mari called out. The students moved about to get to their respective seats before the teacher continued.

"Today, we won't be able to use the school's network for any lessons; we'll have to do them by hand, with pencil and paper." She silenced the resulting groans and complaints with her hand. "Our network is being reinforced with SciLab's new Gamma system..."

Lan perked up and listened.

"...and they need as little interference as possible while doing this, so we won't be able to do any online lessons. Luckily, we're not doing anything that needs your Navis today; we'll be having a math quiz!" More groaning and complaning, louder this time, as Ms. Mari got some papers from her desk and started passing them out. Receiving his, Lan groaned, then took out his pencil and started working with the others, disappointed now that Gamma had returned to his mind.

----------

Ten minutes later, Lan was not doing well on his quiz; he was surprised at how nervous he was, he was even sweating. After solving a couple more problems and getting over his nerves somewhat, he realized it was just plain old hot. He raised his hand, and asked Ms. Mari to turn down the heat; she agreed happily.

"What are you, kidding?" another student piped up. "We're freezing over here!" Mayl and Yai nodded in agreement, shivering.

"You're freezing? That's ridiculous...this room is boiling!" Ms. Mari walked over to the thermostat, then stopped cold when she got past her desk. "Oh my, it is freezing over here! That's odd..."

Suddenly, everyone screamed, as the temperature of the room spiked downward. After, just as quickly as it fell, it rose back up to uncomfortably hot temperatures. Before anyone could realize what happened, all the lights in the room blew, and began to crackle, looking dangerously overelectrified. The students screamed again, running for cover, as the lights flickered and gobbledygook began crowding the electronic blackboard, writing and re-writing itself.

"Lan!" Megaman yelled over the din. "Someone's trying to get at this system too!" Lan nodded in agreement, only half-surprised; whoever was doing this obviously knew Lan well. He ran over to the door and grabbed the handle, but at the same instance, the door locked. Lan pounded the door in frustration, and it unlocked, only to lock again when Lan grabbed the handle. He could hear the other door locking and unlocking randomly as well.

"The system's gone completely haywire!" Lan exclaimed. "Megaman, you need to check out what's going on in there!" He ran over to the classroom's jack-in port and pulled out his PET.

"Mayl!" he called out, and she came over from nearby, very scared and nervous. "I need you to pay attention to the door; when you hear it unlock, open it and get everyone out!"

"Lan, what about you?" she worried.

"I'll be taking care of this, I'll be fine! Just get the other out of here!" Mayl nodded, heading to the door, and Lan aimed his PET right at the jack-in port on the wall, sending Megaman into the school's failing network.

----------

Inside the cyberworld, Megaman had to instantly duck, as a large piece of the scenery came hurtling toward his head at high speed. Barely avoiding it, he got back up to see debris was flying absolutely everywhere, explaining the incredibly random actions of the classroom.

"It's a complete mess in here!" Megaman reported back to Lan. "I don't know if the road is even intact!"

"Just go forward the best you can!" Lan called back. "We need to get to the center of the network and find out what's causing the problem!" Megaman agreed, and warily made his way along the first road of the network. As he suspected, the road cut out just a minute ahead, and Megaman was stranded with no way to get to the center of the network.

"Stuck!" Lan exclaimed, frustrated. "How are we supposed to get over now?"

Megaman looked around for an alternate path, but encountered only a large chunk of debris flying at him. He thought for a second, then ran and dived right into its way, climbing on board. After a second of struggling, he managed to get a footing on top, and started looking around as he traveled in a giant circle around the network. Most of the roads had gaps that were impossible to clear, and almost all the structures had been totaled, sent flying every which way, in a haste. Someone was taking this place apart down to the very last pieces; what their goal was, neither Megaman or Lan were very sure.

"Megaman! Do you see anything?"

Megaman shook his head. "I see a whole lot of nothing, but..." Something caught his eye, and he turned to look; he saw the main network computer, which also had several holes in it. In front of it, simply staring and doing nothing, stood a familiar foe.

"Elecman!" Megaman cried in surprise. "What is he doing here?"

"First Quickman, now Elecman..." Lan pondered. "We've defeated both these Navis before! Why is the WWW sending them again if they're trying to defeat us?"

"I don't know," Megaman started, as he poised himself to jump. "But I'm gonna find out!" He leaped off the giant rock and landed right behind his foe, who still did nothing.

"Elecman!" he called. "What are you doing here! What's going on with the network?"

"What does it look like?" Elecman responded harshly, not turning around. "I'm dismantling this school's network."

"But..." Megaman started. "Why you! Why former enemies if you're trying to defeat us? Why are you destroying our school! What is the WWW up to!"

Elecman laughed. "You certainly are perceptive..." He turned around, and Megaman gasped. Elecman was covered, almost infected, with what looked like glowing green lightning bolts. From head to toes, this new look insisted upon itself, making Elecman an extremely imposing figure to behold.

"Megaman, you have been the sole thorn in the WWW's side for years. You've defeat me, and my comrades, time and time again...it is now Master Wily's personal business to destroy you. And to do that, he needs the Gamma program."

He indicated the bolts on his body. "He's testing it on me now...seeing if I can grow powerful enough to defeat you." In a flash, Elecman pointed his finger at Megaman, firing a powerful lightning attack that knocked Megaman away and onto his back. Elecman laughed. "You see how strong I've become! This is the stuff of dreams...the Gamma program!"

He looked about. "As for your school, I am dismantling it piece by piece. Master Wily needs a more complete version of the Gamma program than was delivered to him by Quickman...and I will have it, whether you decide to get in my way or not!" As Megaman got up, Elecman assumed a fighting stance. "Come and get me!"

----------

Elecman motioned toward some flying debris, and moving his arm, made it collide with Megaman, sending him sprawling several feet away. Rubbing his head, Megaman got up, and narrowly dodged another projectile from Elecman...and another...and another.

"It's no good!" Lan cried. "With all this to contend with, we'll never get to Elecman...Megaman! I'm sending you a Wide Sword, use it to get rid of the debris!" Lan inserted a Battlechip into his PET.

"I got you, Lan!" Megaman replied, as a Wide Sword appeared on his arm. With a few spins and well-aimed slices, Megaman made short work of much of the debris flying at him, setting his sights once again on Elecman. Megaman dashed forward to slice Elecman, but the enemy suddenly disappeared, quick as a flash! Megaman looked around before another powerful electric knocked him into the core unit of the school.

"Give it up, Megaman!" Elecman cackled as he garnered more scenery to throw at Megaman. "Your strength is no match for that of Gamma!"

Lan punched the wall in frustration. "It's too much to handle! If we're avoiding debris, Elecman's too fast for us! We need to slow him down!"

Megaman nodded in agreement, getting up and slicing away more flying debris, jumping out of the way of another electric attack. As Elecman swung his arm around once again to pummel Megaman, a thought came to him. "Lan! Send me a Tornado chip!"

Lan acknowledged, inserting the Battlechip into his PET, causing a tornado fan to be installed on Megaman's arm. Elecman, still giddy with power, tossed mounds of debris in Megaman's direction. "Now!" Megaman yelled, turning on the fan and trapping the debris; Elecman looked puzzled for a minute, then understood clearly when Megaman turned the fan on reverse, hurling the debris back at Elecman and knocking him down. As Elecman started blasting debris away from him, Lan called out to Megaman. "Now's your chance!" Megaman nodded, and just as Elecman got rid of the last of what covered him, Megaman leaped forward and used his Wide Sword to cut deeply into Elecman's body.

"Y...you..." Elecman started. "Curse you, Megaman...I still can't defeat you...!" His body started to fade, but he was then jacked out, saving him from deletion. Megaman retracted his sword, glad that the battle was over. He looked around, and saw the network still torn into a million pieces, though they were no longer moving. _I don't envy the guy who has to fix this,_ Megaman thought to himself before he jacked out.

----------

Back in the real world, Lan took a look around the empty classroom; Mayl must have gotten the others to safety. He walked through the open door and made his way outside, where he was immediately tackle hugged by Mayl.

"Lan, you're okay!" she exclaimed happily before letting go and looking at him. "What happened? Was it the WWW? Did something break?"

Lan started to open his mouth, but realized Mayl was the worst person to tell that the WWW had a vendetta against him. "It was...the Gamma system. It was malfunctioning, and Megaman fixed it no problem." Mayl looked at him funny, knowing he wasn't telling the truth, but couldn't respond before Ms. Mari started calling the students together.

"Well, everyone, since the classrooms are a wreck right now, we won't be able to do work inside..." The students cheered. "So we've decided to send the students home early, with extra math homework for the test tomorrow!" The students groaned as Ms. Mari handed out the assignment to all her students. "See you all tomorrow!" she said, too cheerfully for Lan's taste. The students dispersed, and Lan started walking home; Mayl caught up to him easily.

"Lan, what happened in there? That wasn't just a malfunction...is something wrong?" She looked worried. Lan shook his head.

"Nothing's wrong...a Navi was trying to hack into the Gamma system, wasn't doing a very good job."

Mayl walked a little closer. "Lan...is there something you're not telling me?" She reached out her hand to put on his shoulder, but Lan turned into his driveway, having reached his house.

"No, nothing. See you tomorrow, Mayl." He walked inside and shut the door hard, leaving a dejected Mayl to walk home herself. He leaned against the door and sighed.

"Maybe you should have told her, Lan," Megaman offered. Lan shook his head again.

"She doesn't need to know...it would just worry her. We can take care of this ourselves," Lan stated matter-of-factly, walking up to his room.

Megaman sighed. "I guess you're right...let's just take care of it soon." Lan nodded in agreement.


	3. Chapter 3: Unexpected Consequences

Megaman Battle Network Omega

Chapter 3: Unexpected Consequences

Lan dug furiously through his dresser drawer; an open suitcase lay at his feet, nearly full of clothes and toiletries. He'd seen what he was looking for in one of these drawers, but now that he needed it he couldn't find it for the life of him. He slammed that drawer shut and began searching another.

"You know, Lan, I just noticed, you have virtually no dress clothes at all," Megaman chimed in.

Lan gasped mockingly. "No dress clothes? But what will I wear to the royal ball?" He began his search anew in another drawer. Megaman sighed.

"I'm just saying, you're probably gonna need some sometime and-"

Lan grabbed his swimsuit and slammed the drawer shut. "Found it!" He tossed it into his suitcase and zipped it up, then grasped it and ran down the stairs. He said a hasty goodbye to his mom, who sighed as he took off toward Yai's house. He pulled out his skates and took off at high speed; a few minutes later, he saw the front gate, and the large bus, prepared to take the group to the airport. Mayl, Dex and Yai waved to him as he approached, and as he arrived he screeched to a stop.

"Sorry I'm late!" he said hastily, a tad out of breath. "Couldn't find my swimsuit..."

"It's fine!" Yai said, hopping on the bus. "Just get in, or else we'll be late!" Lan nodded and hopped on the bus, followed by Dex and Yai. They all gasped as they entered; it was a massive, very luxurious double-decker, with carpeted floors, entertainment and kitchen areas, full air conditioning, the works. Lan flopped on a very cushy couch, amazed.

"This is awesome!" he declared. "If I were rich I'd travel everywhere like this!"

Yai pretended to be modest. "Well, we only use it for longer trips, the airport is about 45 minutes away." She opened the fridge and got out her strawberry milk, as Mayl wandered round the bedroom area on the second floor, and the driver started heading toward the airport.

----------

Four hours later, Lan was asleep in in a large seat on Yai's private jet, his head against the window; Mayl, in the seat next to him, had fallen onto his shoulder and was snoozing lightly. Yai was boredly looking out over the water, and Dex was eating his fifth package of airline peanuts. A voice over the speaker announced that they would arrive soon, and Mayl woke lightly, shaking Lan awake so she could get a better look out the window.

"It's so pretty!" Mayl gasped, turning to Yai. "Your father owns this island!" Yai shook her head, again pretending to be modest.

"No, he doesn't own it, really...his company owns the facilities on this island, and that property covers most of the island. I think there used to be some tribe here or something." She shrugged. "Anyway, we vacation here sometimes."

The plane touched down at the airport, and the group (with a couple of Yai's escorts) got off the plane, stepping onto solid ground for the first time in hours. They all took in the satisfying island air before running off toward the limo that took them to Yai's island residence.

Another hour later, and the crew had hit the beach. Yai and Mayl were sunbathing, while Dex was skipping rocks and Lan was building a sand fortress.

"How often do you come here, Yai?" Mayl inquired.

"About once a month, or more if I'm not having a good week," Yai replied nonchalantly. "A lot of the workers here recognize me, I've come enough."

"I wouldn't mind working in a place like this!" Lan exclaimed, putting details into his sand castle with a stick. "Practically no one lives here and you could come to the beach all the time!"

"Yea," Dex added, "but I'd hate having to work in heat like this all the time." Lan shrugged and continued working, as Yai went back to sleep.

----------

Another six hours passed, during which Lan and friends explored the jungle areas of the shoreline, had a delicious dinner, did some local Netsurfing, then returned home for a full-scale pillow war. They eventually found themselves telling scary stories in low lighting.

"And then..." Dex said ominously, as the others huddled together, enraptured by his story. "The girl opened the closet, and she saw the head of her beloved Navi, staring back at her!" Mayl shook and leaned into Lan, while Yai grabbed Lan's arm on his other side.

"He slowly opened his mouth..." Dex continued, knowing he had his audience right where he wanted them. "And he said..."

BANG.

The loud gunshot-like sound echoed loudly throughout the giant residence, as every light in the house went off at the same time. Lan and Dex jumped; Mayl and Yai shrieked.

"W-w-what just h-happened?" Mayl asked, trembling. Yai fumbled about for her PET and turned it on, using it as a flashlight.

"Power outage...that's the only bad thing about this place, the power goes out a lot." She found a proper flashlight and turned it on, bathing the area in yellow light. "This house shares power with one of the factories, and when they screw up, we lose light. It should go back on in just a minute." She set the lantern down, and everyone sat to await the return of power. Fifteen minutes later, they were still using the flashlight.

Lan looked toward Yai. "Does it ever take this long to get power back?" Yai shook her head.

"No, usually it's just a minute or so...they don't like keeping the power down for long, since the security system is weaker on their backup power." Lan started.

"Wait...what kind of security do they have here?"

Yai shrugged. "They recently upgraded...I think they called it Kappa or some weird name."

Lan's eyes widened. "G...Gamma?"

"Yea, that was it..." Yai looked at Lan suspiciously. "Why do you-"

She didn't get to finish her question before a massive explosion shook the house, and the people inside with it. Mayl shrieked again; Lan stood up and instantly ran to the window, to see smoke pouring from one of the factories nearby.

"They're here!" Lan yelled, running to his shoes and slipping into them, looking around for the door. "Where's the door?"

"Lan! Where are you going?" Mayl and Yai called out in unison. Lan saw the door and beckoned for them to follow.

"Just trust me, it's not safe here! Now come on!" He started to run outside, and everyone else got their shoes on and followed quickly after him. Once outside, Lan started running for the factory.

"Wait!" Dex yelled out. "Where are you going?"

Lan called out from behind him. "You guys stay here! I'm going to go take care of whatever happened!" He disappeared into the shadows as he headed for the explosion; the others, not ready to stand around and be vulnerable, ran after him.

----------

After a minute of running, Lan reached the factory, and easily yanked open a door, now that the electronic lock was out of commission. He looked around the factory, well-lit by the fire caused by the explosion off at the far end. He took note of this and made sure to hurry to the nearest control panel, quickly jacking Megaman in.

"Megaman!" Lan yelled. "What do you see?"

Megaman looked around to assess the situation. "Something hit the power source of this factory hard, and I bet they're after the Gamma system too!" He ran forward, but was stopped by running head-on into an invisible wall, knocking him back. As he looked up, he recognized a basic passcode security wall.

"No good!" he reported. "I'm going to need a password to get in!" He walked up to the wall and touched it with his hand, and it gave a question.

"HOW MANY WORKERS ARE CURRENTLY EMPLOYED HERE BY THE AYANOKOJI CORPORATION?" it demanded. Lan punched the wall, frustrated; there was no way he could answer that.

"117!" came Yai's voice from behind him; Lan wheeled around to see Mayl, Yai and Dex had followed him.

"You guys! I told you to stay there, this isn't safe!" he protested.

"And leave all the danger to you?" Dex replied. "No way!" Lan started to protest again, but decided it was a waste of time, and nodded instead. The others began to get out their PETs, and Megaman entered the password into the barrier, which opened up, revealing two more. Megaman sighed and put his hand on the next wall.

"HOW MANY FACTORIES ARE ON THIS ISLAND?" the wall inquired. Lan turned to Yai, who thought hard, trying to remember, before Mayl spoke up.

"There's nine!" she said, causing everyone to look at her. "I counted them as we were flying over." Lan nodded, and Megaman entered this new password, opening the wall, revealing the last one.

"HOW MANY WINDOWS ARE IN THE MAIN HALL OF THIS BUILDING?" Lan looked back hopelessly, trying to count, but Megaman drew his attention back to his PET.

"Viruses!" Megaman yelled, as a large horde of viruses headed his way, ready to attack. Lan sent Megaman a Wide Sword and Spreader as he turned to the others.

"You guys need to count the windows in the main hall!" he asked, and they nodded and ran back into the main room, as Megaman started deleting the viruses one by one.

----------

Out in the main hall, Mayl, Dex and Yai looked around, each counting windows quickly but carefully. Muttering under their breaths, they all got their final counts, then returned to each other.

"120!" said Mayl.

"120!" said Yai.

"100!" said Dex. Mayl and Yai stared at him; Yai pointed at the back wall.

"You forgot the back wall's windows!" she said, pointing to what was remaining of the back wall of the room. "There would have been 20 windows there, just like the other side!"

Dex shook his head. "There's another room back there! There wouldn't be any windows leading to that next room!" Mayl and Yai looked at the back wall, and saw that there was indeed another room behind it. They looked at each other, amazed that Dex alone would get the right answer, then ran back to Lan with the correct answer.

"100 windows!" they all said in unison, as Megaman sliced away the last of the Navis. He put his hand on the wall and said the password aloud, and the wall fell away to reveal the damaged power core behind it, as well as another Navi recognized by Megaman, lying on the ground. He ran forward.

"Magnetman...?" Megaman wondered. The Navi looked exactly like Magnetman, except it was covered in glowing green splotches, as if he were being infected by toxic waste. He raised his head weakly, and his face was horribly distorted and misshapen.

"D...delete me..." he pleaded.

Megaman was horrified; he walked forward and kneeled down in fromt of Magnetman. "Magnetman...what happened? What is this?"

"G...Gamma..." he managed to get out. "It consumed me...inf-fected me...it's destroying me, I c-can't control it..." He tried to stand, but failed and crumpled hard back to the floor. "Please delete me..."

No sooner had those words gotten out of his mouth than three shurikens flew into his back; he screamed in pain, then was silenced, as his body dissolved away in deletion. Where his body was, a ninja Navi landed right where he had lay: Shadowman.

"Pathetic fool," he observed. "He was unable to control the power of the Gamma system...such a weakling is worth nothing to the WWW."

Megaman raised his Buster at Shadowman. "What the heck is going on here?" Shadowman barely took notice.

"The fool forgot his mission...he went for destruction, and it caused Gamma to destroy him from inside." Shadowman looked up. "Exactly why I chose not to have such a ridiculous program installed in me." He raised his hand, revealing, to Megaman's shock, the same three claws that were once on Quickman's hand. "I can get the job done just fine by myself..."

Shadowman disappeared quickly, reappearing behind Megaman, who barely dodged Shadowman's deadly swipe in time. He loaded his Spreader and fired, barely grazing Shadowman, who deftly got out of the way, staring down Megaman after.

"You may have defeated me before...that was you getting lucky," he taunted. "I know how you battle now...I will defeat you!"

He prepared to rush forward, but a resounding "No!" from nowhere made him pause. An instant later, Roll, Glide and Gutsman appeared in front of Megaman, ready to defend him. Shadowman quickly reassessed the situation, not prepared to deal with all four Navis at this time. He grunted, and retracted his claws.

"Next time, Megaman...when you don't have your friends here to protect you...you are mine!" he warned before vanishing once again. Megaman sighed, and jacked out, followed by his friends.

----------

An hour later, Lan was back in his bed, hopelessly trying to get to sleep. Mayl's head appeared as she climbed the ladder to Lan's mezzanine-style bedroom in her pajamas.

"Lan? Are you awake?" she asked meekly. Lan nodded slowly, and she climbed up and walked over to his bed, sitting down. "I can't sleep either...I feel like we're being targeted by whoever's doing this."

Lan looked away, not ready to admit the truth. "Who knows...they should also be after the Gamma program...at the school, Elecman told me they didn't have the whole thing yet."

Mayl's eyebrows shot up. "Elecman? Count Zapp's Navi?" Lan nodded, and she looked down. "Elecman, Shadowman...why are they sending obsolete Navis to do their dirty work..."

Lan shook his head, pretending to not know how the WWW was sending Navis who knew his fighting technique specifically to delete him; that he knew he was the target of the world's largest terrorist organization. "Maybe they ran out or something..."

Mayl shivered a little. "I don't like this...I had hoped we wouldn't have to go through any more Net terrorism like this...I'm scared..." Lan sat up and put his hand on her shoulder reassuringly.

"Don't worry, Mayl...it may look bad, but Megaman and I can handle anything that comes our way...we're not going to let anything hurt us, okay?" Mayl looked back at him and smiled a little.

"Thanks, Lan...I know you can protect us." She stood up. "I'm going to try and get some sleep...goodnight." She walked over to the ladder and climbed back down, as Lan rolled over to go to sleep. No, he wouldn't let anything hurt them; he was already divising some sort of plan to strike the WWW where it hurt, to stop them from trying to target his friends ever again.


	4. Chapter 4: Chain of Information

Megaman Battle Network Omega

Chapter 4: Chain of Information

Megaman stood defiantly at the entrance to the Undernet, staring out at the abyss that lay before him. He was ready for whatever lay beyond; it was time to put to rest everything that was happening to him and his friends.

"Ready, Megaman?" Lan prompted. Megaman nodded, and stepped forward into the Undernet.

----------

Earlier that day, Lan and Megaman had been pondering how to get the Omega monkey off their backs, instead of doing classwork like they should have been. They had decided that they could do one of two things: they could find out what the WWW was planning and disrupt it, or they could stop the WWW from operating outright; given the stress of taking down a large Netmafia organization, they opted to go with the former, which is why Megaman found himself wandering the Undernet in the middle of the afternoon. Not knowing where on the Net the WWW was operating from, they decided to go to the darkest catacombs of the Net in hopes of finding useful information.

Megaman took a look around inside, then held out his palm, where a digital map hologram appeared, and he took a look at it, trying to locate the Undernet BBS.

"See anything, Megaman?" Lan inquired. Megaman kept studying it until he located the BBS, in a corner off to the southeast. He put the map away.

"Found it!" he said, taking a turn southeast. Avoiding as many viruses as he could, he eventually made his way there, and took a look at the many messages sprawled on it. After some careful scrutiny, Megaman put his finger on one of the messages and read it aloud.

"'Some bigshot organization is taking over huge sections of the Undernet! Who do these guys think they are? Why I oughta...'" Megaman spared Lan the rest of the message. "Doesn't say who it's from, though..."

Lan sighed. "Well, try looking for something else...has the guy posted any other messages?" Megaman looked around some more before finding something.

"Here's one by the same guy...says he needs someone to do a job for him in some other section of the Undernet." He quickly memorized the location, before taking off for where the person was supposed to have come from. "Perhaps if I do it for him, he'll tell me more about this group...it could easily be the WWW!" Lan nodded in agreement; any lead was better than none.

After a bit of traveling through the Undernet, as well as some virus busting, Megaman finally found the supposed location of this Navi. It was a small neon building covered in cybergraffiti and partially dilapidated; there were Navis hanging outside, some bartering, some loitering. As Megaman warily approached the door, it banged open, and a similarly dark Navi stormed out, grumbling something about "not good enough". Megaman watched him go, curiously, then walked inside. The inside was just as torn up as the outside, if not more so; Navis were gambling, loitering, shooting craps, etc.

"You're here for the job, aren't you?" said a voice from behind Megaman; he whirled around to face a back corner of the room, where a standard dark Navi with numerous scars and a large "X" carved onto his chest was sitting. He got up and started examining Megaman carefully, walking around and around as Megaman eyed him curiously. He finally nodded. "Yes...you'll do."

"Alright, here's what I need...a virus in Undernet Area 4 has taken some very precious data of mine, and I need you to get it back. It's a tough virus, so you better be strong if you want to take this mission on. Get back here with the data and you'll get 10,000z. Deal?"

Megaman shook his head. "Forget the money...if I take this virus down, I need you to tell me about this group that's been taking parts of the Undernet recently. Everything you know. Got it?" Megaman looked him square in the eye, and the Navi nodded absentmindedly.

"Sure, whatever. Just take care of it." He took out a piece of data with some coordinates and handed it to Megaman. "Here's where you'll find the virus...now get out of here, don't come back until it's done. Your type isn't exactly welcome here." Megaman looked around the room to see many of the Navis glaring at him unwelcomingly, before he turned around and walked out.

----------

"Are you sure this is the place?" Lan asked Megaman, for the fourth time. Megaman sighed and pointed again to the data.

"That's what it says here...this better not be a bogus mission." Megaman looked around the area again; there was no sign of anything around here, save a few spare mushrooms whose purpose Megaman could not discern. Megaman shook his head. "Forget about it...there's nothing here. Let's just go back and talk to the guy, I'll bet if I show up there again, he'll talk."

Lan nodded, and Megaman started heading back to the Navi. On his way, he kicked a nearby growing mushroom, in frustration. As Megaman kept walking away, he heard the mushroom make an odd squeaking sound; as he turned around to face it, he watched, open-mouthed, as the mushroom grew, and grew, until it was a massive Aura Head virus.

"...I think we found it," Megaman managed to get out, before the virus attacked, knocking Megaman away. He managed to land on his feet a few yards away, and was barely able to dodge the next attack.

"Megaman!" Lan called out. "What's the strength of this thing's aura?" Megaman pointed his Buster at the enemy and tapped his arm, to reveal an information sheet.

"200 damage!" Megaman replied. "Geez, that's strong...how are we going to take care of it?" But Lan was already reaching into his folder for battlechips, picking out a select few as Megaman barely dodged another massive attack, as the head shot forward at Megaman.

"Lan!" Megaman called again. "What's your plan here!" Lan quickly got three particular chips ready; a Cannon, High Cannon, and a Mega Cannon.

"We need to do a Program Advance!" Lan declared. "We're going to have to focus..."

Megaman nodded, and closed his eyes to focus on synchronizing with Lan, before a loud attack sound reminded him that he was still actively battling. Not fast enough to dodge the virus's attack, he was knocked back several more yards.

"We've got to distract him..." Megaman said, as he rubbed his head and stood. "How can we draw his attention, though...Lan!" He looked up. "Send me a Voodoo Doll, quick!" Lan nodded and quickly inserted the Voodoo Doll battlechip, handing Megaman a small, stick doll. He called out to the virus and threw it as hard as he could; it created a large, black hole in the ground, that quickly drew the virus's interest, as it felt its dark presence.

"That'll close in just a few seconds...we need to focus!" Megaman closed his eyes, and, counting to himself, managed to synch his breathing with Lan's, who was also counting, and listening for the count. After a second, Lan opened his eyes, still breathing with Megaman, and inserted the three cannons into his PET. Megaman received them in turn, and watched as they combined to form a Zeta Cannon. He looked up, and aimed the massive weapon at the Navi, who was still focused on the hole.

"I have five seconds, I better make the most of them," Megaman muttered to himself, as he aimed carefully, and fired.

The massive beam ripped through cyberspace, hitting the surprised virus head-on, and the aura shattered in the wake of the giant, white energy beam. As the shot dissipated, the virus quickly turned and set its sights on Megaman, instantly firing itself at Megaman with high speed. Megaman quickly aimed again, and fired, just as the virus got close enough to attack. The giant beam made it to the virus first, and, letting out a horrible, high-pitched, jumbled screaming sound, the virus was deleted. Megaman let out a sigh of relief as the program advance disappeared, and shook his head, feeling slightly lightheaded.

"Phew...glad that's over," he stated. He looked around for the data the virus left behind, but after an extensive search, there was nothing there.

"Wait...what the heck! That virus never had his data at all!" Megaman punched his fist in frustration. "Gah...let's get back there, I have some information to get out of him." Lan nodded, and Megaman hightailed it back.

----------

Back at the dwelling, the black Navi that had sent Megaman on his mission was cackling and talking to someone via a communicator on his arm, when he heard the door slam open mightily. Turning around quickly, he saw a not-at-all-pleased Megaman, who marched right up to him and grabbed his wrist, holding him up.

"What were you trying to pull, sending us out to that virus like that!" Megaman demanded, before a Buster blast hit him in the back. He stumbled forward, letting go of the Navi; turning around, he saw every Navi in the joint with their Busters raised, ready to attack. The Navi Megaman had grabbed was grinning.

"You don't get to find out...you're not leaving this place alive!" Instantly, everyone in the room attacked; Megaman was able to get away from the Navis with an Area Steal quickly, but they soon turned and advanced again.

"Lan! How the heck am I supposed to face these guys!" Megaman exclaimed.

Lan shook his head. "No idea...unless we did another Program Advance, but we'd never have time to synch up properly."

Megaman took out his blaster and started firing. "We may not have any other choice! I need a Life Sword to take out all these guys, we'll just have to try and synch more quickly!" Megaman started counting his breaths, "1, 2, 3..." albeit more quickly than usual, as he ran about, firing his Buster. Lan closed his eyes and matched his breathing with Megaman's rapid pace, then, after a second, opened his eyes and gave Megaman a Sword, Wide Sword, and Long Sword.

Cornered in the room, and out of Area Steals, Megaman was nervously waiting the arrival of the Program Advance, as the enemy Navis got closer and closer...

"Hurry up!" he called out, firing his Buster wildly, before his arms started to glow. Seizing the moment, he put his Sword and Wide Sword together on his hands, and when the Long Sword data went through, they glowed bright white, combining to form the glowing, blue Life Sword P.A. With a split-second before the Navis attacked, Megaman swung with all his might.

The bright blue sword slashed through every single Navi in the room, its aftershock extending through the entirety of the building. Once the sword dissipated, all the Navis were lying on the ground, half-broken, while the building structure was partially destroyed. Navis started jacking out one after another, but Megaman ran forward, and grabbed the original Navi by the wrist once again, an icy look in his eyes. The Navi gulped audibly.

"I've had enough of this," Megaman demanded. "Tell me what I want to know." The Navi nodded hastily, nervously.

"S-sure," he stammered. "This group called the WW, or something, they were taking lots of Undernet space for themselves, who knows what they're doing over there...they've taken five areas already!"

"Where is it?" Megaman asked hastily. The Navi grabbed a blank piece of data and put some coordinates onto it, handing it to Megaman.

"Here...the entrance to the area is right here, but good luck getting out if you go in..." Megaman nodded, but kept holding tight onto the Navi's wrist.

"One more question...why exactly does everyone in this room want me deleted?"

The Navi panicked slightly. "I-it's nothing personal, really! Some weird old guy put a price on your head for the Undernet, we were just trying to collect! You gotta believe me!" Megaman nodded coldly, and dropped the Navi, who immediately jacked out. Megaman walked out of the building slowly and started walking toward the area where the WWW was operating.

"A price on my head...looks like the WWW is more desperate than we thought..." Megaman mused. "We better get this taken care of as fast as we can, before anyone else gets hurt." Lan nodded in quiet agreement, as Megaman walked on.


	5. Chapter 5: Enemy Territory

Megaman Battle Network Omega

Chapter 5: Enemy Territory

"Here it is, Lan," Megaman stated matter-of-factly, as he stared at the entrance to the WWW's network. A large, purple laser door stood before him, demanding a password. Megaman looked down at the data with the door's coordinates on it, and in tiny writing below it was written: DORSAHK.

"DORSAHK," Megaman said aloud to the door, and it disappeared instantly, allowing Megaman passage through. Taking a step forward into the teleporter, he instantly disappeared, and reappeared within a strange net, almost entirely white. Megaman looked around; the passages were almost mazelike, but he could make out two distinct laser doors within, and at the very far end, what looked like a computerized database. Megaman nodded and started walking forward, but after only a few steps, he found his feet completely stuck to the ground.

"What the-?" Megaman wondered aloud, looking down and trying to pull his feet free. Hearing something from behind him, he turned around quickly to find several Heavy viruses stomping their way toward Megaman. Lan started to panic.

"What do we do?" he thought aloud, before remembering the Float Shoes he could put into Megaman's Navi Customizer. "Megaman!" he called out. "Hold on, I'm going to install some Float Shoes as fast as I can!"

"Hurry!" Megaman worried, thinking of being stomped to deletion by Heavy viruses while he was turned off waiting for a program. Lan nodded and switched off Megaman's power temporarily, hurriedly taking a Float Shoes program out of his folder and inserting it into his PET. Through the screen, he watched as the Heavies got closer and closer, as he finished equipping Megaman with the program. He turned Megaman's power back on, but a large ERROR message showed up on his screen - he had inserted the program wrong! Panicking once again, Lan turned Megaman back off and worked quickly to correct the error he had made. Finally finding a good spot for the program, he slammed the Navi Customizer door shut on his PET and turned Megaman's power back on. On screen, the Heavies had finally caught up to Megaman, and were directly above him, coming down quickly, just as Megaman opened his eyes.

There was a quick flash of light, and Megaman was on the other side of the Heavy viruses, his Wide Sword outstretched, down on one knee to recoil from the quick strike. The Heavy viruses faded into deletion as Megaman stood up, again able to move freely.

"Thanks, Lan," he smiled as he retracted his Wide Sword, and ran on through the twisting passages to the first door.

----------

Reaching the door, Megaman tapped it to bring up a small information panel: "WHAT IS THE NAME OF LORD WILY'S GREATEST RIVAL?"

"That's easy," Lan said confidently. "It's you! ...Or maybe it's me...maybe this isn't so easy." He debated inside his head for a moment before Megaman spoke up.

"No, it's Dad!" he offered. "Dad beat out Wily all those years ago, with that federal grant...he's hated him ever since!" Lan agreed, and Megaman announced aloud to the door: "Yuichiro Hikari!" The door disappeared, allowing Megaman further passage. He continued on, through the maze-like area, until something mysterious suddenly smashed Megaman in the face, knocking him over. Rubbing his cheek, Megaman looked around for the source of the attack, but could see nothing. Standing up, he felt a quick, light breeze on the back of his head, before he was attacked in the same spot, knocking him foreward onto his face.

"Where is this coming from?" Megaman asked nervously, looking around as he stood up. He saw something small and black dart past his face, then felt it from behind him, and he turned around quickly and nervously.

"What the heck is that thing?" Lan wondered. "So fast...how can we hit it?"

"All I know is there's just a small breeze before it hits," Megaman thought aloud. He then closed his eyes. "Maybe, if I concentrate..."

Lan watched in wonder as Megaman stood perfectly still, listening and waiting. After a minute, Megaman felt a small breeze to his left, and, with great speed, turned his buster in that direction and fired. It connected with its target, sending the small black object crashing to the ground at Megaman's feet.

"Way to go, Megaman!" Lan cheered, as Megaman bent down to inspect the object. Picking it up, he saw it must have been a Bunny virus...but it was nearly all black, with some silver about it. No Bunny virus looked like that, or moved that fast.

"Lan...do you think Wily's using the Gamma program on viruses?" Megaman pondered.

"If he were, the Net could be in a whole heap of trouble," Lan surmised, as Megaman continued on his way to the next door.

----------

"WHAT WAS THE NAME OF THE WWW'S FIRST GREAT PROJECT?" the next door demanded to know.

"The Life Virus..." Megaman muttered to himself, causing the door to disappear. "Something's wrong, Lan, this is too easy. I have a bad feeling about this..."

Lan nodded in agreement. "Be careful, Megaman, this has to be some sort of trap." Megaman headed forward to the database, and started searching about.

"Budget, employees, payroll...this isn't the stuff we need," Megaman muttered, flipping through the sections of the database. "Past projects...current projects! Let's take a look." Megaman attempted to access the file, and was presented with a passcode screen, with no clues of any sort. Megaman looked blankly at the screen.

"Any ideas, Lan?" he inquired, looking studiously at the keyboard. Lan shook his head.

"That password could be anything...it could take us ages to guess the password." Megaman started typing absentmindedly, thinking, when he noticed a counter in the bottom-right corner of the database screen. It read 2; Megaman watched curiously as it changed to 1, and then to 0.

"WARNING!" the computer declared aloud, as the keys locked up and an error message popped up on screen. The area promptly turned from white to red, as something clicked inside Megaman. "YOU HAVE EXCEEDED THE TIME LIMIT ALLOWED FOR PASSWORD INPUT. ENTER OVERRIDE CODES OR PREPARE FOR DELETION."

"Lan, the Gamma system isn't being used to keep people from getting in...it's to keep them from getting out!" Megaman announced, looking around hurriedly at his surroundings. "The Gamma system is incomplete...we may be able to get out of here if we run!" Lan nodded, and Megaman took off back toward the entrance to the area. Looking back briefly, he noticed a wall of lasers following him, ready to delete him upon contact; Megaman ran faster, quickly blasting, then bypassing any viruses he came across.

A few minutes later, Megaman had successfully outrun the lasers, and was almost at the exit, when another password door shot up in front of him. Frustrated, Megaman pounded on the door, prompting the password clue: "WHAT IS THE ONE THING THE WWW UNDERSTANDS BEST?"

"Damn it!" Megaman exclaimed, as he racked his brain. "What could it be!" He looked back in distress at the laser wall, which was coming nearer and nearer.

"Hurry up, Megaman, we have to get out of there!" Lan worried aloud, as Megaman kept thinking hard for the answer, his eyes locked on the incoming laser wall and virtual sweat beginning to pour down his brow.

"Gah!" Megaman screamed in frustration, aiming his buster at the door and firing with everything he had. The door shattered into a million pieces, before Megaman's eyes; without stopping to give it a second thought, Megaman ran as fast as he could through the exit to the WWW area, just as the laser door eradicated what would have been him.

----------

Safely outside, Megaman was kneeling down, panting, as Lan wiped sweat from his forehead.

"Megaman...it was force!" Lan exclaimed. "Force is the thing the WWW understands best!"

Megaman nodded slowly, still breathing hard, but standing up. "We'll have to remember that, I guess." As he started to jack out, Lan got a phone call on his PET. Opening up the screen so both Lan and Megaman could see, Yuichiro appeared, looking very distressed.

"Lan, Megaman, come quick!" he said hurriedly. "SciLab is under attack from the WWW!"

Megaman nodded. "We're on our way!" he stated before jacking out.


	6. Chapter 6: An Impenetrable Fortress

Megaman Battle Network Omega

Chapter 6: An Impenetrable Fortress

Lan arrived at SciLab shortly after the distress call from his father. The place was in complete disarray; scientists were running to and fro trying to resolve whatever was going on, and visitors were huddling in corners, having no idea what the ruckus was about. Lan pushed his way through, ignoring the comments about rudeness, and looked around for his father.

"He's not around here," Lan murmured to himself. "He's probably in his office on the second floor." He pushed through another crowd of scientists and slowly made his way to the elevator, which he took to the second floor. Running out and seeing a slightly clearer hallway, he took a turn left, toward his dad's office, which was also filled with people working.

"Dad!" he yelled out, running into the office. Yuichiro heard him from the other end of the office, and turned to face him.

"Lan!" he called out, motioning with his hand for Lan to approach. Lan ran forward, up to his dad, and took a look at the flashing computer screen in front of them, as his father talked with an aide animatedly. Text flooded the screen, with more and more text scrolling in by the second; Lan barely understood a word of it, but he could tell from the red font that it was likely nothing good.

"...exactly how they got in here. I want to know every detail about this break-in, especially where the Gamma System failed." The aide nodded and ran off.

"Dad, what's going on?" Lan asked, though he suspected he knew already. Yuichiro turned back to Lan.

"The Mother Computer has been attacked...we can't say for sure who the culprit is, but it has the WWW's signature all over it." Lan grimaced; Mother Computer was the main security and data management structure for Electopia, and had already been attacked once by Gospel. Yuichiro turned to the screen, which was reporting dozens of confusing characters and numbers. Lan eventually recognized that it was a damage assessment; he couldn't tell if the many high numbers were good or bad. He saw one thing in particular that stood out; in large letters in the corner were the various security levels that had been breached, which happened to be all of them.

"Dad, I thought you wanted me to stay away from the WWW?" Lan inquired. His dad nodded.

"I wouldn't have called you here," Lan's father continued, "but the programmers of Mother are currently unreachable; also WWW's doing, probably." He sighed and rubbed his forehead. "I know it's dangerous for you, but you've been inside Mother Computer before, and can navigate...and time is of the essence." He turned toward Lan, a stern yet tired look on his face. "Can you lead us to the central core of Mother so we can protect it?"

Lan nodded resolutely. "Yes, I can, Dad," Lan stated, before a thought occurred to him. "Who am I leading there?"

A group of Officials from behind Yuichiro raised their hands; Yuichiro gestured toward them, turning slightly. "They will be able to reinforce the central structure...and they'll also be acting as your escort." He grinned, despite himself, at the annoyed look on Lan's face. "You can't be too careful around the WWW, you know."

----------

Minutes later, Lan, Yuichiro and the group of Officials were in the Mother Computer room, unperturbed by the flashing red lights and ready to jack in and stop whatever was the cause of the attack. They stood at the main terminal, which was the closest link to the core that the room offered.

"So we're clear on what we're doing, then?" Yuichiro confirmed. "Lan will lead us through the Mother Computer until we reach the core...at which point, the Officials will start reinforcing security, and Lan and Megaman will jack out."

"What?!" Lan turned his head quickly to his father. "No way I'm jacking out! I'm the one who-"

"Absolutely not," Yuichiro replied sternly, a rather stony look on his face. "I'm not going to let you put yourself in danger again. Don't think I don't know what you've been up to this afternoon." Lan swallowed nervously, and, realizing there was no point in arguing, nodded resignedly and turned back to the terminal.

"Ready to go, then! Everyone jack in!" Lan whipped out his PET's cable and plugged it into the terminal, sending Megaman into the computer.

----------

A familiar sight greeted Megaman when he materialized; the network looked exactly has it had when Gospel attacked. If there was any sort of Gamma system in place, he couldn't tell; there were no signs that anything beyond normal security was in place.

"It's as if the Gamma system were eradicated entirely..." one Official Navi commented from behind. "What the hell is going on?"

"No idea," commented another. Megaman started running forward.

"Well, let's go and find out!" The Officials nodded and ran after him, as Megaman pulled up the layout of the Mother Computer from his memory. They ran forward through the various twists and turns of Mother's complex layout, designed to ward off intruders, when they all saw numerous viruses wreaking havoc on the computer structures ahead.

"There's too many to take out," Megaman muttered to himself. "We're just going to have to clear a path and keep going!"

"Leave that to me," one Official called out, running forward toward the viruses. As they turned to him and started to advance, he made some quick adjustments to his buster, then aimed it at the slowly advancing group before him. Just as they began their attacks, he fired his buster. A massive yellow beam of energy shot forth, obliterating any virus that was caught in its path, and scattering all the rest. Once the beam was finished, the remaining viruses looked at the remains (or lack thereof) of their comrades, then fled panickedly.

Megaman stared, agape, as the Official Navi chuckled. "Gamma-powered! Standard issue these days. Makes cleanup a breeze." Megaman grinned and nodded, amused, as he and the other three Officials ran forward to him. They all started to continue down the path, when they suddenly found their path blocked by an invisible wall. Megaman looked around, and some very familiar letter panels showed themselves on the floor.

"Agh!" Megaman rubbed his head. "The viruses must have been surpressing the standard security system...now we have to deal with it." He started accessing his memory archives again, looking for the passwords, as the Officials looked around for the hint programs.

"They're nowhere!" one stated. "How are we supposed to get through here?"

"Working on it," Megaman replied, as he pulled up his previous excursion through Mother. After a second or two of searching, he came across himself running over the letter panels, spelling out the password: ALMOST THERE.

"Got it!" Megaman exclaimed, as he headed to the letter panels and started running across. After hitting the final E, the invisible wall colored itself, hummed for a minute, then disappeared. The group of five ran forward toward Mother's core, which was in sight now.

As they got closer, they all realized something rather disturbing; there was nary a virus or a Navi in sight, besides themselves. They stopped running and started walking cautiously, taking a look around for any signs of trouble. Megaman approached the core of the computer and started typing, looking for a sort of damage assessment, wondering what the WWW had done. He cycled through various status reports.

"Gamma system: offline." "Backup security: restored, but heavily damaged." "Main data system: intact, no damage." "External hardware..." Megaman stopped for a minute, cycling back, to confirm what he thought he heard.

"Main data system: intact, no damage."

The WWW had made it all the way to the core of the system, yet the invaluable data that Mother held was entirely untouched. Something was wrong. He turned around to tell this to the Officials, but when he did, he found the Navis on the ground, each pierced with a massive shuriken. He ran away from the core computer and assumed a defensive stance, looking around for who he knew was there.

A shuriken flew at him from his left, and he dodged it quickly, turning to look at an advancing Shadowman; what he saw, however, disturbed him greatly. Like Magnetman, Shadowman was now covered with the green blotches indicating Gamma infection. His walk was erratic, as if he was being forced to walk forward, and his breathing was harsh.

"Shadowman...what the hell happened?!" Megaman demanded. Shadowman gave off a cackling laugh; it sounded as if he had gone insane.

"Gamma...system..." he uttered. "The power...incredible...he showed me...the way..."

"What?" Megaman exclaimed; Shadowman was starting to not make sense. "Who's he? What way?" Shadowman laughed a high laugh.

"Him...you shall know..soon..." Shadowman lifted his sword. "But now...you...end!" He suddenly dashed forward, slicing at Megaman, who yelped and jumped backwards quickly; apparently his insanity had done nothing to mar his fighting style.

"Lan, Shadowman's gone crazy!" Megaman called out as Lan sent him a Long Sword.

"I saw! We're just going to have to delete him, who knows what he'll do in this state!" Lan answered back, as Megaman dashed forward to attack Shadowman. Shadowman quickly disappeared, then upon reappearing, threw a shuriken at a nearby control panel. As it hit, a small explosion emitted from the terminal Lan was jacked into, and he yelped and jumped backward just as Megaman had. He looked down at his PET a second later, to find that the connection had been lost.

"Argh!" he yelled, as he pulled the cable from the now defunct terminal, as Yuichiro rushed over.

"Lan, are you alright?" he asked worriedly.

"I'm fine, but Megaman's still stuck in there!" Lan exclaimed, as he turned to his father. "I need another place to connect"!

"But there is nothing else..." Yuichiro thought to himself, trying to think. "I'll have to reroute some connections to the Mother Computer. Lan, get downstairs and jack in to the main screen, I'll make sure it gets you through to Megaman! Go quickly!"

"Right!" Lan nodded, and the two ran off, Yuichiro to his office, Lan to the main floor.

----------

"Lan?! Lan!!" Megaman called out, as he noticed, too, that the connection had been broken. Distracted for a minute, he was knicked in the side by a flying shuriken; he cried out and grabbed his side, turning his attention back to Shadowman. He would have to fight without Lan for now, with only a Long Sword.

He dashed forward to attack Shadowman, who disappeared, as expected. Knowing he and two clones would appear encircling him, he quickly spun his sword in a circle around him, cutting through all the bodies that appeared. As he looked around, though, he had cut clean through three copies, and it was by chance he looked up to see Shadowman coming down from above, ready to stab; he barely rolled out of the way to avoid damage, as he looked back at Shadowman.

_What is this?_ he thought to himself. _Does the Gamma system change a Navi's fighting style, too? Or has he just gone insane?_ He didn't have time to answer that question, as Shadowman charged again. Megaman stood up and met Shadowman's sword with his own, and pushed Shadowman back. As Shadowman started to attack, however, he suddenly fell to his knees and grabbed his head, letting out a scream of pain.

Megaman started at this, staring at Shadowman. What on earth was causing this? First Magnetman, now Shadowman...was the Gamma system just incomplete? Or was it dangerous to its core?

----------

Lan was running down the stairs two at a time, not bothering to take a too-slow elevator. His mind was focused on getting to that screen as fast as he possibly could, and he didn't think about anything else - until the phone in his PET rang. He faltered for a minute, then continued moving, ignoring it, until he heard Mayl's voice.

"Lan? What's going on? Where are you?" _Crap,_ Lan thought; he must have set it to auto-answer on accident. He grabbed the phone and saw a rather-distressed Mayl on the other end. "Why are you running?!"

"Mayl!" Lan exclaimed, trying to think fast. "There was...I'm at SciLab." He decided that the truth may serve his purposes, to an extent. "There's been an attack...it's really dangerous. You need to stay away."

"What?!" Mayl replied indignantly. "But what about you? You're in trouble!"

"I'll be fine!" Lan responded. "The...the Officials are all here, they're taking care of it. Don't worry about me!"

"But-" Mayl started, before she was cut off by Lan disconnecting. He didn't want to make Mayl worry, but at the same time he didn't want her getting hurt.

A few seconds later, he rounded a corner and found himself in the main lobby, where the main screen was. Luckily, the lobby was less crowded than it used to be; people must be out doing their jobs trying to get the whole thing under control, he concluded. He pushed several people aside in his haste, and quickly jacked in, hoping that his father had done the job by then. Megaman's appearance on screen confirmed for Lan that he had.

"Megaman!" Lan called out, as Megaman turned his head upward. Megaman smiled in response.

"Lan! You're back!" Megaman then turned his head back to Shadowman, who was now staggering forward, muttering to himself.

"No...won't control me...yes...it is...Gamma's will...and his...NO!" he was saying to himself. It was rather clear that there was a strong personal struggle going on inside. Megaman could only watch, partly in horror, as Shadowman fought himself, slowly going more insane.

Suddenly, there was a mysterious sharp movement, and Shadowman collapsed to the floor, a large sword-shaped hole in his back. Megaman went back on the defensive again, but could see no one around. Whatever had just attacked, it was faster than Shadowman, and that was not good news. Megaman barely had time to contemplate this fact before feeling a stabbing pain in his back. He looked down, to see three razor-sharp claws sticking out his front, having pierced him completely.

----------

"Megaman!!!" Lan called out panickedly, seeing what had happened. Megaman could do nothing but look down at the objects that had pierced him; it felt as if his very life was being sucked away by these claws. As suddenly as they had gone through him, they were withdrawn, and Megaman fell forward, grabbing his stomach, trying to find his assailant. He soon spotted him; a tall Navi, adorned in orange, with a long face. Spikes stuck out of his elbows, and above each hand protruded a Long Sword. His right hand was clenched into a fist, as too-familiar claws extended from them. He grinned an evil grin down at the injured Megaman.

"Pathetic...I expected a bit more of a fight first. You must have been distracted by that weakling Shadowman."

"Who...who are you..?" Megaman uttered, feeling rather weak. The Navi laughed.

The Navi posed vainly so Megaman could get a good look. "I am a work of art...the first Navi ever created from the ground up to utilize the Gamma system...and thus far more powerful than any other Gamma-enhanced Navi you've experienced so far. My name is...Swordman."

Megaman started to feel a bit more strength; the feeling of his life being sucked away had subsided. All the same, he could only watch helplessly as Swordman stood over him, retracting his claws.

"And out of everyone you've seen so far, I am the only one to have succeeded in our task. The WWW has acquired what it needs from you...and now, you shall be terminated." He raised his sword, ready to bring it down, when Megaman felt the effects of Lan's last Full Energy subchip. He quickly rolled out of the way, just as Swordman's sword came crashing down. When Swordman looked up, Megaman was already back on his feet.

"This isn't over yet," Megaman declared, brandishing his Long Sword. "I've got too many answers to get out of you!" Megaman dashed forward to attack Swordman, but his opponent disappeared faster than Megaman could see. As Megaman looked around, he barely caught an oncoming sword out of the corner of his eye, deflecting it; all the same, a kick to the head from Swordman knocked him backwards.

"You want answers?" Swordman laughed. "Sure, why not...but you've only got one time to ask one thing before I delete you." He dashed toward Megaman, who responded quickly with an unexpected Spreadgun, which managed to knock Swordman off balance; the weak attack didn't do much damage, however, and Swordman had already recovered by the time Megaman swung at him with his sword. The two locked swords, putting their weights against each other in struggle.

"Why did the WWW attack Mother Computer? What do they need with it for their plans?" Megaman demanded to know. At this, Swordman started laughing nearly uncontrollably, as he brought his second sword up to meet Megaman, slashing his chest. Megaman staggered backward for a second, as Swordman jumped forward and kneed Megaman powerfully in the face, knocking him backward onto his back. Swordman was still laughing as he landed.

"You foolish, naive Navi...have you still not figured it out yet?!" he demanded, as Megaman got to his feet. Megaman threw a Big Bomb toward Swordman, which he jumped away from; as it exploded, Megaman dashed forward through the smoke to attack, but his sword met nothing. Instead, Swordman slashed from the side, knocking Megaman back again as he painfully clutched his side. Swordman stepped forward; Megaman slashed at his feet, but Swordman jumped to avoid it, stomping down hard on Megaman's Long Sword, which shattered.

"Have you not been paying attention the last couple of weeks? All the Navis you personally deleted, upgraded and sent after you again?" Swordman put his foot on Megaman's chest, keeping him down. "A WWW attack occuring everywhere your operator went, even on a remote island thousands of miles away? Bounty hunters seeking a massive price on your head?" Swordman raised his sword, and stabbed it through Megaman's shoulder, who cried out in severe pain, as Lan cried out in fear for his now-helpless Navi.

"And the last two pieces of the puzzle...a seemingly pointless attack on the Mother Computer...and me, a Navi built with the sole intention of destroying you." Swordman grinned evilly, as Lan and Megaman both anticipated what was coming with dread.

"It's not Mother that the WWW is after, it is you! You alone, Megaman, have been the recipient of WWW's strength and hatred...you alone have been made the most wanted, hated Navi on the Undernet! Your fate has been sealed from day one!"

As Swordman laughed, Lan heard two gasps from either side of him; one from his father, who was now standing beside him, but another, more feminine gasp from his other side. Lan looked over quickly to see Mayl standing in the entrance, her hand clasped over her mouth. As she lowered her mouth slowly, she looked at Lan, eyes filled with horror; she had seen everything Swordman had said. Lan could just stare at her for a moment, before Megaman's cry of pain drew him back to the main screen; Swordman had stomped on his chest again, for fun, coming down from his maniacal laughter.

"And this is how it will all end for you...we have what we need from you...and he will put it to its greatest use." Megaman and Lan remembered the claws, and Megaman realized with a start that there was _something_ being sucked out of him then, if not his life. "The WWW will soon see greater days than it ever has before...going from simple Netmafia to overlords of the planet." Swordman looked down at an enraged, but essentially immobile Megaman. "And once I delete you...there will be no stopping us."

Swordman raised his sword once again, aiming it at Megaman's face. "Farewell..."

Megaman closed his eyes, awaiting his end; after a second, it still had not come. He opened his eyes and looked back up at Swordman, to see yet another blade sticking out of Swordman's chest. An instant later, it was withdrawn, and the sword sliced straight across Swordman's torso, cutting him in half. As Swordman's halves toppled over, Megaman saw a red and white Navi, with a sword on his hand and shades over his eyes.

----------

"Protoman!" Megaman and Lan exclaimed together; Lan looked over, to see Chaud standing to his side, looking up at the screen.

"You looked like you could use a hand," Chaud said plainly, not looking away from the screen, as Protoman gave one of his Full Energy subchips to Megaman, restoring him. Once that was done, Chaud jacked Protoman out, and Lan did the same for Megaman, quickly turning his attention to his PET.

"Megaman! Are you alright?" he demanded worriedly.

"I'm fine...though my ego is fairly damaged," Megaman responded limply. "Swordman...he took me down faster than anything I've ever fought. I could barely even fight back..."

"That's no surprise," Chaud stated, as Lan looked over at him. "I've been doing some WWW investigating of my own...Swordman was designed using analysis of Megaman's construction and fighting style. He was made to predict your every move before you made it...and to be far more powerful, thanks to the Gamma system." Chaud put his PET away as he spoke. "Luckily, this means he wouldn't do nearly so well against any other Navi, such as Protoman. Once I heard he'd been deployed, I rushed back here to help."

"Chaud..." Lan started. "Thanks. I owe you one." Chaud shook his head.

"You don't owe me anything. I was just doing my job, trying to take down the WWW." He turned away, toward another part of SciLab - the part where Official NetOps usually spent their time. "Speaking of which, I've got an emergency briefing to attend."

Yuichiro nodded. "Yes...now that that's over, we need to assess what just happened...and what the WWW may do next." He looked over at Lan. "Afterwards, however, I should probably talk to you as well, in my office...about what's going on with the WWW and Megaman." Lan nodded, feeling a bit sick about the whole affair.

Chaud's eyes flicked over toward the main door. "And it looks like you have something of your own to take care of," he mentioned as he and Yuichiro walked off. Lan looked over to the door, where Mayl still stood, having been unable to bring herself to move. She was on the verge of tears as the two locked eyes from across the room.

"Lan...what..." she managed to get out; the sick feeling in Lan's stomach grew. He tried to say something in response, but nothing would come out. He just shook his head, then turned around and headed for Yuichiro's office.

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A short while later, Lan was in his father's office, having already spoken with Megaman about the whole affair; he now sat on a bench in silence, his mind fixed on everything that had happened just now. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of nearby footsteps; he looked up to see Mayl timidly entering the room. Lan wanted to leave again, he didn't want to face the way he had lied to her, but then he saw her eyes were red and puffy; she had obviously been crying. He looked down into his lap, feeling sick and ashamed.

"Lan..." Mayl started, as she walked over to join him on the bench; when he didn't shoo her away, she sat down. "Why...why didn't you tell me what was going on? You knew...that Megaman was..."

Lan looked a little away. "You didn't need to know...I didn't want you worrying about me. I told myself we could handle it on our own..."

"Some job you did handling it!" Mayl exclaimed, exasperated. "Did you think I didn't know something was wrong? Did you think I wasn't already worried out of my mind? And now look what's happened!" Her anger subsided, and she touched her throat lightly, feeling the rather large lump left there from her worry.

"Nothing would have changed if I'd told you!" Lan said, on the defensive. "Things would still have been a huge mess! You saw what happened! The only difference would be that Roll would have been attacked too...and you as well...and who knows who else."

"Lan, Roll can battle too, you know!" Mayl retorted. "And had she been there to help against Swordman, you wouldn't have lost! He wasn't made to deal with any other Navis!"

"I didn't want her there to help! I didn't want her to risk getting hurt because of me...I didn't want you getting hurt because of me..." Lan looked down, his voice trailing off, as Mayl looked on.

"Lan, Roll wants to be there for Megaman...it's her choice." Mayl leaned down to get at Lan's eye level. "And...I want to be there to help you..." She slowly reached her hand out, seeking Lan's hand.

"Ugh, meetings..." Yuichiro's voice made the both of them jump; Mayl's hand retracted like lightning, as Lan's father walked in through the open office door. "Even when we all know what needs to be done, it doesn't stop people arguing with each other over it." He took his glasses and cleaned them with the edge of his shirt, then looked toward Lan and Mayl. "Though the two of us were going to talk about that..." He walked over, and Lan felt a bit uncomfortable again. Yuichiro looked at Mayl for a minute, and felt a bit uncomfortable himself, with her here to hear what Yuichiro thought would have been a more personal conversation. "Um...perhaps Mayl should..."

"No, it's alright, Dad." Lan looked up, as Mayl looked at Lan. "She can hear...she knows enough as it is. She doesn't need to be closed out." Mayl rubbed her eye and smiled a bit.

"Alright..." Yuichiro began. "Lan...I now realize how involved with this whole business you and Megaman are." He touched his glasses to his forehead. "And I both know what you're capable of...nevertheless, I still think it's best that you leave the work of dealing with the WWW to the Official NetOps."

Lan was indignant. "But Dad-!" he started.

"No buts," Yuichiro silenced him. "This situation is even more dangerous for you than I previously thought. If you act without supervision, god only knows what could happen to you out there. However..." he continued. "If it comes to it...you and Megaman may need to assist us. As much as I hate putting you in danger, you are one of our best NetOps...and Megaman one of our best Navis. But I want you to wait for word from me before doing anything at all. Is that clear?"

Lan nodded, feeling a little better about this, knowing now the dangers associated with the current situation. "Yes, Dad."

"Good." Yuichiro smiled a bit. "Now, I'm tired...and hungry. I say we try to put this behind us and go get some food...what do you think?" Both Lan and Mayl agreed. As they stood up, however, yet another person came through the office door; an aide that Lan didn't recognize.

"Um, Dr. Hikari, sir...?" he began nervously. "I have the results from the analysis of the security failure, but...um..."

"Well, what happened?" Yuichiro inquired, a bit impatiently. "How did they break their way in?"

"Well, um, that's the thing, sir..." The aide looked down at the piece of paper, to confirm what the reading had said for perhaps the tenth time today. "They...didn't have to break in. They had all the access codes to shut down the Gamma system..."

Yuichiro's eyes flared. "What?! How?! That's impossible!"

"Th-there was zero evidence of a break-in, sir..." The aide cowered a bit from Yuichiro's anger. "The Gamma system went through an entirely normal shutdown procedure, the access codes were used..."

Yuichiro's eyes widened a bit, as he realized the implication of this. "Then...someone here at SciLab...must be a double agent for the WWW..."

The four stood in silence, dumbfounded.


	7. Chapter 7: No Safe Haven

Megaman Battle Network Omega

Chapter 7: No Safe Haven

Lan practically stumbled through his front door at 11:30 pm, extremely tired from the day's events, as well as the late hour. As soon as the door opened, Lan's mother, Haruka, rushed over and hugged him tight, having been worried sick.

"Lan! Where were you?" she exclaimed. "I've been worried about you! I couldn't reach you on your PET phone..."

Lan's phone had received those calls, but he had not even looked to see who called at the time. "I'm fine, Mom...I was at SciLab, with Dad." He managed to wrest himself from his mother's grasp. "There was some sort of problem...we couldn't leave...I'm sorry I didn't call." He rubbed his eyes, visibly exhausted.

Haruka's first inclination was to chew him out some more, but upon seeing how tired Lan was, she decided against it, biting her lip. "Alright...but off to bed with you, you need your sleep. I'll give your father a call to find out what happened."

Lan nodded. "Thanks, Mom," he said as he walked off in the direction of his room. As soon as he got to his room, he put his PET in the charger, then flopped into his bed, instantly falling asleep after mumbling "Goodnight" to Megaman.

----------

After the discovery that someone at SciLab was a double agent, the building had been immediately locked down; every door, window, air vent, and even sewage pipes were barred off. Nobody was going to get in or out, at least not before an extensive investigation took place.

Yuichiro quickly put together two investigation teams; one was to search the SciLab computers for any traces of malicious data sent in or out, and the other would be investigating everyone present in SciLab at the time. The visitors were the first to be checked out, as they were all bitterly complaining about the inconvenience, and the SciLab staff was extremely eager to get rid of them. After they were gone, the real work began; each worker was brought in and questioned, their files were re-examined, and their computer terminals were inspected, in a very time-consuming process.

Through all this, Lan and Mayl were left to their own devices. They both petitioned Yuichiro to let them go home, but he insisted they stay, as the both of them could be in danger given the current situation. They both gave up after about 15 minutes, resigning themselves to staying in Yuichiro's office for the time being. They talked for a while about what had happened, but eventually changed to playing checkers and other games with their PETs.

The highlight of the evening, for them, came at around 8:30 pm, as they were trolling about Electopia's NetCity with Megaman and Roll. Yuichiro had stepped out for a bit to stretch his legs, and all was quiet for a bit, until the two heard the door slamming open loudly. They both jumped, looking over at the office door, to see a rather large and angry Official looking in at them.

"You two! What are you doing by yourselves in Yuichiro's office?!" He stormed over, as Lan stood up, ready to defend himself, but the man grabbed Lan's PET instead, staring at the contents; his eyes widened. "And what are you doing on the Net?! Do you have authorization?"

"Of course we do, you big buffoon!" Lan retorted; the next instant, the Official had grabbed Lan by the collar, not having taken kindly to the insult.

"Buffoon?! Who the hell do you think you are, you punk?!"

"He's my son," a voice called out from behind them; the Official turned around to see an angry Yuichiro staring back, his arms folded. "I suggest you let go of him."

"R-right, Dr. Hikari." The Official immediately let go of Lan, who rubbed the back of his neck. "Sorry...guess I got a bit overzealous..."

"So you did." Yuichiro's face was stony. "You should get back to work."

The Official nodded and headed out the door rather quickly, Lan sticking his tongue out at the man's retreating back.

Unfortunately, no progress was made anywhere in SciLab over the next two and a half hours; all of the employees screened so far were clean, and the Net team could find no traces of traitorous messages or code being sent out. After Lan fell asleep sitting up on the bench, and subsequently fell off, Yuichiro relented, and decided that maybe they should head home after all. He arranged for a SciLab driver to escort them back to ACDC Town, where Mayl, then Lan, were dropped off; both fell asleep very soon after returning home, glad for the long night to be over.

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Lan soon found himself dreaming; in his dream, he was seeing through Megaman's eyes, as he ran along the corridors of a dark and sinister Net Area. Glowing green viruses surrounded him on all sides, and it was all Lan/Megaman could do to dodge their attacks and continue on his way. At the end of the corridor, he found himself in a large room; it was completely empty, save for one figure bathed in the shadows in the corner. As Lan looked toward the figure, it grinned a very evil grin, and began to step out of the shadows...

His sleep was interrupted by a piercing scream; he shot bolt upright in his bed, and deduced that it came from his mother's room. He quickly grabbed his PET and put it in his belt, having fallen asleep in his clothes, and ran toward her room. When he got there, he was in for quite a sight; Haruka had lept out of her bed, which was folding in on itself, as the television and computer blared loud noises and showed static. A second later, books were being launched from the electronic bookshelf; they both screamed and got out of the room posthaste, as Lan heard his computer start to blare as well.

"What the heck is going on?!" Lan yelled above the noise, as extremely hot air started to emit from the vents; they both started running.

"I don't know!" Lan's mother yelled back. "Everything just started going crazy all of a sudden and tried to attack!"

They ran downstairs to the living room, where the other TV was blaring as well, and the kitchen appliances were looking poised to attack.

"We need to get out of here!" Lan exclaimed; he ran to the sliding glass door in the living room and opened it, not wanting to enter the kitchen in this state. When they ran outside, however, they heard screams, crashes, and other noises of all sorts, none of them sounding good. The entire town seemed to be under attack. Lan ran to the gate door and opened it, and they both ran out into the street, where dozens of other people had already evacuated to.

They stared, open-mouthed, at the pandemonium present. Car horns were honking, seizure-inducing lights were flashing in people's windows, and screaming was practically everywhere. It was total chaos all over ACDC Town. The flood of people seemed to be running in one direction, akin to a cattle drive; Lan and Haruka looked down the road and noticed the flood moving toward Lan's elementary school.

"Lan!" a voice called out; Lan looked to his left, to see Mayl running in his direction, wearing a jacket over her nightgown. She flung her arms around his neck upon reaching him. "Thank goodness you're okay!"

"Mayl!" Lan exclaimed. "What's going on? Do you know?" Mayl shook her head as she pulled herself away.

"I don't know! Everything in my house started going crazy, and when I got outside, I saw everyone else screaming and running!"

"Do you know where everyone's going?" Lan inquired.

Mayl nodded. "We're all going to the elementary school. For some reason, nothing seems to be happening there...though it's probably really crowded by now. I met up with Dex earlier, too, he made it out okay."

Lan nodded back, as the three of them started moving toward the school. "What about Yai? Is she alright?"

"I don't know, I haven't seen her yet...she probably has a saferoom in her mansion or something..." Mayl's voice trailed off as she saw Dex running toward them.

"Yai's...in trouble!" he exclaimed, stopping to catch his breath. "When I ran by her house...I heard her screaming for help!" Mayl gasped.

"We need to go and rescue her!" Lan looked toward the mansion, which was in the same state of pandemonium as everything else, and started running, followed by a heavily-breathing Dex.

"Lan, be careful!" Haruka called after them as they ran toward the front doors.

----------

Throwing open the doors and looking inside, they saw the Ayano mansion as a complete and utter mess; paintings had fallen off the walls, hot air was steaming from vents, the noise of blaring televisions was everywhere, and there were miniature robot butlers running into everything, out of control. As they looked around, wondering where Yai could be, they heard her scream from upstairs, and both ran after her. They found her in her room, huddled in a corner as a robot slowly advanced on her, holding a baseball. Her eyes widened as she saw the two boys run in.

"Lan! Dex! Help me!" she called out, as she screamed and dodged a pitch from the robot. Wondering a bit what a pitching robot was doing in here, Lan ran up to the robot, taking out his PET to jack Megaman in, when it whirled around and tossed a pitch at Lan instead, who yelped and just barely dodged it.

"Lan! Catch!" Lan turned to see Dex holding a long, thin statue, of an oriental dragon, about the same shape as a baseball bat; he tossed it, and Lan caught it, taking a batter's stance. He nervously awaited the robot's move, and sure enough, it quickly sent another pitch Lan's way; he swung with all his might.

As it turned out, the pitch was wild, and went through one of the windows instead; likewise, Lan completely lost his grip on the statue, and inadvertently threw it right at the pitching robot's head, knocking it down on its back, its legs flailing wildly. Seeing her opportunity to escape, Yai scrambled out of the corner and ran toward Lan, as did Dex, and they all quickly ran out of the mansion as fast as their feet could carry them.

Yai's parents were nervously waiting outside, having been evacuated by the butler on duty; as soon as they saw Yai run out the door, they ran up to her and scooped her up, hugging her tight, as they all started crying and talking at the same time. Mayl and Haruka ran up to the boys; Mayl was grinning.

"You did it! How is Yai? Is she hurt?"

"She's fine, as far as I know," Lan replied, looking toward ACDC Elementary. "But we need to get to the school, it's not safe anywhere else." Everyone nodded, and joined the flood of people heading toward their safe haven.

----------

Sure enough, the school was extremely crowded when they arrived; people had begun filing into classrooms to make space, but there was still a massive bottleneck in the front hall. As the group pushed their way through, they finally managed to make it into one of the fourth-grade classrooms, which still had a fair amount of space in it. Several families were already inside, holding each other or talking nervously, and one was even sleeping. It was only then that Lan became aware of the voice screaming from his hip; he grabbed his PET and looked at a rather exasperated Megaman.

"Finally! I've been trying to get your attention for like ten minutes!" Megaman exclaimed.

"Sorry! I couldn't hear anything, everyone was screaming!" Lan replied. Megaman shook his head.

"Well never mind that. We need to get on the Net! We have to find what the cause of all of this is!" Lan nodded, and ran toward the nearest jack-in port, the one near the chalkboard, sending Megaman into the Cyberworld.

Upon arriving in the Cyberworld, Megaman was a bit surprised to find no viruses, no visible signs of damage, no anything. Whatever had struck ACDC, it was somehow being prevented from entering the school's system. Megaman quickly ran toward the school's Internet connecting area and took off, transporting himself to the ACDC network.

In this part of the Net, the damage was a bit more visible. Along the floor of the Cyberworld, he could see small electrical impulses flooding everything, zigzagging about the complex network structure before ending up in the networks of individual houses.

"What do you see, Megaman?" Lan called out.

"I have no idea what this is!" Megaman replied, as he ran forward, trying to investigate more. "It's as if someone's sending disruptive signals to everyone in town!"

"Well, where are they coming from?" Lan inquired. Megaman looked around, scanning for a source, until he noticed one point in the network from which the impulses were all flowing out. He started to run toward it, but was stopped as a wave of electricity flew through his body. He screamed out for a moment, but just as soon as it had come, it passed, and he stumbled back before regaining his balance. A minute later, the lights in the school suddenly went out, and everybody started screaming again. Whatever was in charge of this, it had found its next target.

"Megaman! Step on it!" Lan demanded, as Megaman started running with all due speed toward the source of the impulses.

----------

After a bit of moving, during which much panic ensued within the school, Megaman finally found himself within the Cyberworld of the DenCity power plant. He continued following the path of the electricity as it led him back toward the ACDC section of the cyberworld, and finally into a large room filled with monitors. Each monitor was showing a shot of ACDC from a different angle; everything was still in chaos, though no one was left on the streets. The impulses were originating from a control panel that was set up near the monitors; it had a different design scheme from the rest of the items in the room, and was clearly installed recently. None of this, however, caught Megaman's eye.

Standing at the control panel was a Navi of moderate height, but from the back, the Navi looked exactly like Megaman, down to the very last detail. He was staring at the monitors, watching the panic ensue; from what Megaman could tell, he was watching the school.

"What the hell?! Who are you?! Show yourself!" Megaman demanded. The Navi nonchalantly turned around to look at Megaman, who gasped in shock; everything about the Navi looked exactly like he did, save for one detail: the Navi had no face. Instead, a pure black, head-shaped sphere rested underneath its helmet, seemingly staring right into Megaman.

Megaman could barely bring himself to speak for a second or two. "What...what are you?" he finally managed to get out after a second. The Navi said nothing, but held up its hand, which produced a Sword; it proceeded to dash toward Megaman and swing away, which Megaman managed to avoid. He gritted his teeth, as he readied his buster.

"So it's a fight you want, doppleganger...well, you'll get one." He stood up and started blasting away. Back in the real world, Lan started feeding Megaman battlechips, hoping to give Megaman a bit of an advantage. Megaman managed to get a good hit in with a Long Sword, but the fake turned it around with a well-timed BigBomb, which sent Megaman flying backward into a wall. He got up and dodged a stab from the imposter, delivering a knee to the stomach, but the other just grabbed his leg and flung Megaman across the room.

As Lan prepared to give Megaman some more powerful chips, the lights suddenly came back on, but they were accompanied by the turning on of the chalkboards. Instead of blaring noise and static, however, a familiar figure appeared on the screen, accompanied by the backdrop of a computer control room; upon seeing him, many started screaming and panicking again, some worse than before.

"Wily!" Lan cried out, as his friends gasped behind him. "I knew he'd be behind this! What's he up to?" The image of Wily laughed onscreen, then began to speak.

"Citizens of ACDC Town...so nice of you to join me for this chat." He cackled at his wittiness, as he started to twirl a cane he was holding in his left hand. "You are witnessing the beginning of my control of the world. Thanks to the help of one of your own, I have been able to construct a very powerful tool of destruction and mayhem...and what you see are its effects." He grinned, as other people continued to shriek randomly. "I've locked all the doors and windows...and in five minutes time, all of the school's systems will turn on you, reducing you to nothing but a demonstration of the raw power of the WWW!"

At this news, everyone started screaming wildly, as Wily's image laughed maniacally, then disappeared. Lan cursed and turned his attention back to Megaman's battle; this must have been what Wily was trying to create with the Gamma system.

"Megaman! How are you doing?" he asked, as he saw Megaman get knocked back by a powerful punch, to which Lan winced.

"It's no good!" Megaman called back, getting on his feet to fire his buster. "This guy's as strong as I am! I'll never be able to take care of it within five minutes if this keeps up!"

Lan cursed again, as he racked his brain for ideas; one quickly came to mind. "Megaman! We need to go HubStyle!"

"HubStyle? That's dangerous! You know you could get hurt if we do that! You receive my damage as well!"

Lan shook his head. "It's the only way! We need to end this battle soon, and if he's as strong as you now, HubStyle should be more than enough to take care of him!"

Megaman quickly dodged a blast from his imposter. "Alright...you may be right. Let's do it!" Lan nodded, and started cycling through the options on his PET, until he found the one he was looking for, the one his father had warned him to never use unless the situation was life-threatening - the HubStyle option. He clicked his way through two confirmation screens, then hit OK.

----------

The screen of his PET started to glow a bright white, as did Megaman, as the last bit of Hub Hikari's DNA data was transferred to him. The connection between the two grew to connect them literally in mind, as the sensors in the handle of Lan's PET picked up Lan's connection to Megaman. Lan closed his eyes for a moment as Megaman changed himself.

When Lan opened his eyes again, he was silent; his mind was connected directly to his brother's. Megaman stopped growing, revealing his transformation to his HubStyle form. All of his armor had vanished, leaving him in a blue bodysuit, with his symbol emblazoned directly onto his chest. His hair fell freely, no longer restricted by the helmet, and fell to cover his left eye; Megaman brushed it out of the way. This was HubStyle - a form that left him with much less defense, but more powerful than almost anything else on the Net.

The doppleganger started for a moment, not expecting this eventuality, but was nonetheless undeterred in its battle. It dashed forward, slicing at Megaman with his sword; Megaman easily sidestepped the blow, and delivered a kick to the imposter's body that sent him flying across the room. The imposter shook its head, the looked up to see Megaman dashing forward with his own sword, which easily penetrated its chest. Megaman stood for a minute, with his sword in his enemy's torso, before slicing upward through its head, effectively taking it out. The fake Megaman lay back, defeated, before exploding, leaving no trace of itself behind; Megaman protected himself with a Barrier, before quickly turning around and firing his buster at the control panel, destroying it.

Around the school, the sound of windows and doors being unlocked could be heard all at once, and the citizens of ACDC cried out in joy as they forced the door open and squeezed themselves out of the school, glad to be out of harm's way for now. His job done, Lan took to his PET again and deactivated HubStyle; Megaman glowed white again and returned to normal, as the powerful link between the two was disconnected. Lan returned to normal quickly, then slumped down to his knees, breathing heavily, his vision swimming; HubStyle always took a lot out of him.

Mayl gasped and kneeled down next to him. "Lan! Are you alright?" she asked, as his friends circled around him, trying to be determined. Lan could only nod, as he tried to recover his strength on his hands and knees. His mind was reeling not only with the aftereffects of such a link, but of what he had just seen; Wily, the fake Megaman, all of ACDC attacking its citizens...

He managed to mutter "Just...need...a minute..." before slumping to the floor, as the rest of ACDC Town muttered to themselves, reality setting in. No one knew what to do; they couldn't go home, scared of what would happen to them in their sleep, but they couldn't stay out on the streets. The town was paralyzed by fear and uncertainty, having lost the sanctity of a safe haven.

----------

At a mysterious location somewhere, Wily was sitting at his desk, reading over some financial papers, when he heard a knock on his door.

"Enter," he stated, as the door opened, and one of his minions, Count Elec, walked in.

"Sir, Megaman appears to have defeated the Omega prototype," he started, a bit unsure of himself, knowing what often happened to messengers. "From the data it sent to us before it self-destructed, they were evenly matched, except for Megaman's special ability, which eventually defeated it."

Wily looked up, grinning. "No matter...all we needed to see was a demonstration of its power. The fact that Megaman could defeat one means nothing to us at this point."

"So everything will continue to go according to plan, sir?" Count Elec inquired, glad to know he would not be on the receiving end of Wily's wrath. Wily nodded.

"Yes. Proceed...to mass production."


	8. Chapter 8: The Gamma Army

Megaman Battle Network Omega

Chapter 8: The Gamma Army

"Move this stuff out of here! We got a lot of space to make!" Yuichiro's voice rang out through the large warehouse, as he tried to get workers to move crates this way and that; clearing out a space for a town's worth of citizens was proving to be as difficult as he thought it would be.

Back in the main SciLab area, the scared, huddled citizens of ACDC Town sat about, or walked about, or talked about everything that had just happened. Most of them too afraid to return home, they were now being relocated to one of the SciLab warehouses, which was the safest place they could be. Despite one successful assault on the system, the area protected by the Gamma program was still the safest alternative, after the codes had been changed, of course.

Lan, Mayl, Dex and Yai were in one corner of the main lobby together. Three of them were talking about what was going on, and what the WWW was planning; Lan sat in the corner, leaning against a window and looking out, still a bit drained from his recent HubStyle. Mayl looked over his way on occasion, to make sure he was well, but the night went on mostly undisturbed for him. He was thinking hard about what he needed to do now; the WWW was after him, and innocent people were getting hurt by it. He tried to think of something that he could do, but nothing came to mind. He was stuck in SciLab for now, and nursing a pounding headache to boot. After a little while he lay down on the windowsill, falling into a deep sleep.

--

Lan slowly woke up several hours later, blinking and yawning. He slowly sat up and took a look around; the lobby was much emptier than it had been earlier, with only a few people left sleeping on cots. He rubbed his head, which was a little sore but still felt better, and decided now would be a good time to act. He got to his feet and walked toward the elevator leading to his father's office.

"Lan, where are we going?" Megaman inquired from his PET; Lan's awakening had shaken Megaman out of his own reverie.

"I'm heading up to Dad's office, to try and connect to the Net," Lan replied. "I can't keep watching people get hurt in place of me...I want to do something!"

Normally Megaman would have objected, but after the encounter with his doppleganger, he understood much better how Lan felt about this being a personal issue. "Alright...but what are we going to do? Do you have any ideas?"

Lan shook his head as he stepped into the elevator. "No ideas yet...I'll figure something out, I'm sure." He stepped out on the next floor, heading toward Yuichiro's office. "I just hope I don't run into Dad..."

"Why not?" asked a voice behind him; Lan jumped and turned around to find his father looking down at him rather plainly. Lan stammered for a minute, trying to find words. "Well...erm..."

"If you were planning an excursion on the Net," Yuichiro continued, "then I have a bit of a job for you." Yuichiro walked past his puzzled son into his office, then motioned Lan inside. As Lan followed, Yuichiro produced a small memory stick.

He looked over at Lan. "You mentioned once that you have a Net friend in the Creamland government...is this true?"

Lan looked away for a second, thinking of Princess Pride. "Er, yea...something like that."

Yuichiro nodded and handed Lan the memory stick. "Give this to Megaman. It contains a message that needs to be delivered to the CreamLand government about the recent attacks, along with some data." Lan nodded and inserted the stick into his PET; he looked around for a place to jack in, and his father pointed him to a nearby terminal. "Go there and come straight back, I don't want you two investigating on your own." Lan nodded, a bit hesitantly, as he approached the terminal, while Yuichiro headed for the office door.

Lan turned around. "Where are you going?"

"Another blasted meeting," Yuichiro grumbled. "One about the attack on ACDC. I swear, sometimes I feel no one around here can do things on their own..." His grumblings faded as he headed out the door.

Lan turned back to the terminal. "Ready to go, Megaman?"

Megaman nodded in response. "Ready when you are, Lan!"

Lan pulled out the plug for his PET. "Megaman, jack in!"

--

After a bit of traveling, Megaman found himself at the link to the Creamland net, and stepped through. Taking a look around, something was definitely wrong.

"Lan, something's not right...there's no one here." He readied his Buster and walked forward, taking a look around. There wasn't a Navi in sight; all that he could see was the occasional odd virus.

"No Navis? You don't think...Creamland's been attacked too?"

"I'm not sure," Megaman replied. "But I'm on the lookout for the WWW. I'll be careful." Holding his Buster at the ready, Megaman made his way forward, heading toward Cream Square and wondering what he would find there.

As soon as he walked into Cream Square, he was assaulted on all sides by gasps and cries. He looked around, taken aback, only to find several M-Cannon blasts headed toward him at once; he just barely got out of the way in time. Looking around, he could see the entire Square was fortified, and occupied by numerous Creamland Official Navis.

"Stay back!" one of them shouted. "We are heavily armed and are prepared to delete you by any means necessary!" A wave of his hand signaled another round of M-Cannon fire; Megaman dodged it and held out his hand, signaling to stop.

"Hold it!" he yelled out. "What are you talking about? I'm not going to hurt anyone!"

"Don't listen to him!" the Official shouted again, as one final round of M-Cannon fire shot forth, dodged once again. At that point, an Official jumped out from behind a barricade, wielding a Long Sword, and started slicing away while Megaman blocked with his own Sword.

"Hold it! Time out!" Megaman cried in vain. "I'm not here to hurt anyone! I'm delivering a message from Electopia!"

"We already received your message of destruction!" The Official swung again and again in vain. "Creamland is fully prepared to protect itself from the WWW and the likes of you!"

As Megaman moved to block another swing, yet another round of M-Cannon fire managed to catch him, and he fell backward onto his back, injured.

"We've got you now, menace!" the Official cried out, as he jumped the air, ready to plunge his Long Sword into Megaman's body...only he never got the chance. A laser blast crashed into his side, knocking him away and onto the ground, as cries arose from the rest of the Officials once again. Megaman sat up, rubbing his head, and looked toward the entrance to see a familiar figure.

"What the-?!" he started, as he looked straight at the doppleganger of himself that he had defeated in ACDC. Then the false, faceless Megaman walked forward, only to have another walk through the entrance to Cream Square...and another...and another...

--

Megaman stared, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, as dozens of his faceless clones walked into Cream Square, effortlessly destroying the fortifications, deleting Official Navis, and wreaking havoc. Megaman quickly stood up and started to run toward them, only to be tackled from the side by one of their members, pinning Megaman down. As he struggled to get out of his fake's grasp, a highly mechanical voice eminated from its face.

"Self-destruct in five...four..."

Megaman quickly got his Sword back and, twirling it quickly, managed to chop off the hand of the Navi, who collapsed, having lost its balance. Megaman quickly kicked it off of him and scrambled away, just barely making it away as the fake Megaman exploded in a contained, yet powerful, blast. As Megaman shielded his eyes from the light, several more dopplegangers started advancing on him.

"Megaman!" Lan's voice rang out. "I'm jacking out! You can't win this fight!" Megaman looked down at the arm still in his hand and nodded, torn between bewilderment and rage, as he vanished from this battlefield. As soon as Megaman was safely back in his PET, Lan took off running from his father's lab and down the hallway.

"Look, we've got to replace the system as soon as possible!" In the meeting room, Yuichiro was debating hotly with his colleagues about the future of SciLab, and the security of the Gamma system. "It's clearly a vulnerability, with the knowledge of a SciLab spy!"

"Nonsense!" bellowed a SciLab bureaucrat, also at the meeting table. "The system is a stellar achievement in security! Just because someone's compromised it from within doesn't make it any less secure! Once we weed out the fellow who did this-"

Everyone jumped as the door suddenly flew open; Lan stood in the entryway, bent over and catching his breath.

"Lan!" Yuichiro stood up. "What are you doing?"

"Dad," Lan got out, still catching his breath. "We have...a serious...problem..."

--

Ten minutes later, Yuichiro was pacing back and forth in his lab, awaiting the results of an analysis, while Lan sat in a now-too-familiar bench, having explained to his father everything that he and Megaman had seen in Cream Square.

"What do we do now?" Lan inquired.

Yuichiro pushed up his glasses. "The spare arm that Megaman brought back is being analyzed now...whatever information we get out of it, we're going to use in deciding what to do next."

"Well, when when is the analysis over?" Lan was starting to get antsy, knowing that something big was going to go down.

Yuichiro checked his watch. "In about...three seconds."

Sure enough, three seconds later, there was a loud beep from the next room, and an intern came running in, holding a long strip of paper. "Dr. Hikari, sir, the results-"

"What did we learn?" Yuichiro walked toward the intern, wanting to take a look at the results himself, as the intern scanned the notes with his finger.

"Right here sir, this is important..." Yuichiro took a closer look. "The Navi was being controlled directly through a transmitted data broadcast...it had no autonomous will of its own. If these are being mass-produced..."

"Then destroying their controller will stop the army in its tracks." Yuichiro finished the young man's sentence for him. "Do we know where the signal was being broadcast from?"

"Yes sir, Dr. Hikari," the intern stated somewhat excitedly, pointing to another spot on the paper. "The signal was traced to this server, which is located at these GPS coordinates."

"The WWW base..." Yuichiro nodded resolutely. "Well, that settles that then. We're going to nip this in the bud right now."

Lan's eyes widened a bit. "You mean..."

"Yes." Yuichiro pushed up his glasses. "We've got to assault the WWW base directly." He turned to another person in a lab coat. "I need you to round up a group of the best Official Netbattlers we have on duty, anywhere in the world. Make sure that Eugene Chaud is among them somewhere."

Lan hopped up, nervous and excited, but in the same instant his father motioned for him to sit back down. "Don't even think about it, mister."

"What?!" Lan exclaimed, incredulous. "You can't do that! If Chaud can go, then Megaman and I certainly can-"

"Lan, I've told you, this is too dangerous..." Yuichiro turned toward Lan, ready to lecture him, but was silenced by the firm resolve in his son's face.

"Dad...I'm going whether you like it or not," Lan stated firmly. "The WWW attacked me, they hurt my friends...this is my fight, too. I have to go."

Yuichiro sighed, rubbing his forehead, then finally nodded. "Alright...you're right. You deserve to come along, heaven knows you've gotten out of worse situations before." He looked up. "Plus, you're still one of our best Netbattlers..."

Lan smiled. "Thanks, Dad..."

"Don't mention it...now go and get some sleep, before I change my mind. We're going to be leaving as soon as the other Netbattlers arrive, which could be up to ten or twelve hours from now." Lan nodded, and headed out of the office, looking toward at least one of the cots in the SciLab storage area as Yuichiro continued to give orders left and right.

As he walked through SciLab, Lan's mind was, for the first time in weeks, at peace; tomorrow he was finally going to do his part in stopping the assault that had targeted him and hurt his friends and family. He wanted nothing more than for his life to return to normal for him, with just school and friends and living in peace; for that, though, he needed to be rested. As he found his way to an open cot, he lay down, his mind resolute, and went to sleep.


	9. Chapter 9: Battle On Wily's Island

Megaman Battle Network Omega

Chapter 9: Battle On Wily's Island

"Lan, wake up. It's time."

Several hours later, Lan found himself being shaken awake by his father as he lay in his cot. He sat up, blinking, and yawned as he rolled out of his cot, still in his clothes from the previous day; the current situation was wreaking havoc with his sleep schedule. At least it was going to be at an end soon, he told himself.

He had had another dream last night; slightly better than the last, but still quite strange. He had been running down a corridor, as before, but with much more confidence, more strength. Upon reaching the shadow figure, however, he found that the creature was just as disturbing as it had been before. He never got a clear look at his face, having woken up around then and gone back to sleep, but he knew he wouldn't like what he saw.

As he followed his father back to the main labs of SciLab, Lan passed by the cots where his friends were sleeping; Yai, Dex and Mayl, along with his mother. He considered waking them, seeing them off, but decided that this was a pretty bad idea, even after the argument he'd been in with Mayl about the whole debacle. He passed by them all without a word, deciding it would be better to ask forgiveness later.

As Lan entered one of the SciLab meeting rooms, he saw that several other Officials were waiting there, along with Chaud; he looked as if he had just been roused from sleep as well, but still alert. He looked in Lan's direction and nodded as he passed; Lan gave another nod in reply, before sitting down on one of the chairs provided and rubbing his eye.

"We're all here, then? Good," Yuichiro began, at the front of the room. "We've managed to discover Wily's current base of operations, on an island in the South Sea." He pulled out a pointer and indicated a map on a screen next to him. "The military wouldn't be able to organize in time, and what we need is some good Operators anyhow. So we're going to organize a sneak attack as best we can."

He pointed to a couple of Operators sitting off to the side. "You two will be helping with the security systems. We need to get in, but we also need to make sure that we don't leave any sort of footprints behind." The two nodded in response.

Yuichiro motioned to the other two Officials. "You guys will be taking care of the drone control system once we run into it; do so as fast as you can, by any means necessary." They too nodded, as Yuichiro pointed last to Chaud and Lan.

"You two will be taking care of any resistance we meet along the way. Wily's sure to have plenty up his sleeve, so it goes without saying to be your guard." Lan nodded dutifully, more than ready to do his part.

"Now, we need to be as covert as possible when approaching the island, so any conventional methods of approach, like helicopter or boat, are out. Instead, we'll be taking..."

--

"A submarine?!" Lan exclaimed incredulously. "A real submarine?!"

He was standing before a Navy-class nuclear submarine, equipped with all sorts of stealth gear and weaponry, and just generally looking badass. "That's awesome!"

"When there's a national net crisis, your dad gets a lot of pull in the government," Yuichiro remarked, as Chaud stepped into the submarine, rolling his eyes at Lan's immaturity. "We can't be seen, and a submarine is best for stealth. Bit of a longer trip, but what can you do." He started to get in, motioning for Lan to follow, which he did.

Upon stepping inside, Lan's face lit up at all of the neat electronics around him; having naturally never been on a submarine, this was one of the coolest things he'd ever seen. "I could hang out forever in one of these!"

"Well, don't touch anything," his father warned, as the last Official entered the submarine and a crew member shut the hatch. Lan grinned, being content to look for right now, as the crewman prepared the submarine for the long voyage.

--

Five hours later, Lan was getting extremely fidgety, waiting for the time when they could get off the submarine and actually do something; fortunately for him, the submarine started to lurch to a stop, and all the Officials stood to attention. He quickly turned his attention to his father, who was watching a screen that had pictures of a building on it.

Lan walked over. "Is that the base?" he inquired. Yuichiro nodded.

"Satellite video of what's going on... I've been trying to find information about where we could enter from, but it's been raining most of the trip." He pointed to a certain picture, and Lan leaned in for a better look; he saw a small door in a corner of the large building. "It looks the least guarded of any entrance, from what little information I can gather, so I think this is going to be our best bet."

As he spoke those words, the submarine started to surface, and eventually appeared on the video feed in front of Lan and his father. Yuichiro straightened up, pushing his glasses onto his nose.

"Alright, this is it. You ready, Lan?"

Lan nodded resolutely. "Ready as I'll ever be."

"Good." Yuichiro headed toward the hatch, where the rest of the Officials now stood, as a crew member opened the door. The small group of seven stepped out, single file, onto the muddy ground of Wily's island.

As Lan exited the submarine, which quickly submerged again, he took a look upwards at the gigantic fortress in front of him. He had been hoping it would be a bit more sinister-looking, but this was clearly made to not draw attention to itself; a large, gray rectangle with rock designs painted on it, and not even any skulls on it or anything. He studied it for a minute, before noticing everyone else had headed over to the entrance; he hurried over, just as the Officials on security detail managed to get the door open. Everyone quickly hurried inside, shutting the door behind them.

"Where does this tunnel lead us?" Lan whispered, as the group slowly inched their way forward.

"We don't know," Chaud replied in a hushed voice. "We didn't exactly have blueprints of this place." Lan rolled his eyes and followed. Eventually the tunnel turned into a stairwell, and they headed up toward a more well-lit area.

Finally stepping into the light, the group found themselves on a high railing; Lan looked down to find numerous robots skirting about. Some were operating machines, some were patrolling the grounds, and others were just making sure the place was cleaned up. Yuichiro frowned and motioned the group away from the railing, toward a more hidden alcove with a jack-in panel.

He turned toward the security Officials. "You two need to hack into this panel and change the route of the security robots, quickly." They nodded and quickly jacked in, as Yuichiro continued. "Don't forget to remove any traces that you were there; we can't afford to leave any footprints behind."

"Um, Dad..." stated a rather wide-eyed Lan. "Speaking of footprints..." Yuichiro turned toward where Lan was looking, and his eyes widened in horror as well. Muddy footprints had been left all over the walkway by the group, who hadn't thought to clean off their shoes after walking across the muddy island.

"Damn it," he muttered. "We have to clean that up before--"

As if anticipating his comment, a patrol bot appeared nearby, and was immediately attracted to the mud trail. Upon further inspection, it noticed the bootprints, and a small red alarm light popped out of its head.

"SECURITY BREACH," it started to announce, the red light flashing.

"So much for our stealth mission," Lan muttered, as he ran out toward the patrol robot. It quickly turned toward him, but only had time to register Lan's shoe, as Lan kicked it in the head and over the edge of the railing.

"RED ALERT SECURITY BRE--" it managed to get out before hitting the floor below, smashing to pieces upon impact. Instantly, the building was alert, with red lights flashing and sirens sounding, as most of the group started running down the walkway, trying to cover as much ground as they could before the security systems fully activated; two Officials stayed behind to try and subdue it as much as possible.

"Where do we go?" Lan called out to his dad, as they ran down the walkway.

"I'm not sure!" he called back, rounding a corner. "But we think it'll be in the northeast section of the building, so let's just try to go there! We should be close!"

Sure enough, before too long they spotted a stairway surrounded by a variety of warning signs: "DO NOT ENTER CONTROL ROOM", "WARNING HIGH VOLTAGE", along with a few written in barcodes.

"This is it!" Yuichiro called out, running toward the doorway. Just before they got in, though, a loud siren started blaring in the immediate area, and an electric grid sealed off the staircase. Yuichiro yelped and skidded to a halt, causing Lan to run into his back.

"Damn." One of the Officials ran up to inspect the laser grid controls. "What do we-"

"INTRUDER ALERT," sounded a metallic voice from behind; everyone turned around to find a short, dome-shaped security robot with a laser pointed right at the group. Everyone quickly dove out of the way as the robot fired, then wheeled around. Before Lan could even think what to do, Chaud had reached out with his foot and kicked the laser off forcefully. The robot, none too pleased, made a high-speed charge at Chaud, who got out of the way just in time to let the robot impact the wall.

Lan's eyes lit up for a minute, and he scrambed for the electric grid once again. "INTRUDER ALERT," the robot proclaimed once again, and made a charge for Lan. Lan dived out of the way at the last second, sending the robot headfirst into the grid. With a loud popping sound, the robot's head flew off, and smoke was sent everyone. Once everyone had coughed and fanned the smoke away, they saw the electric grid had vanished.

"Bingo!" Lan cheered, and made a beeline for the stairwell. As soon as he passed through, however, a humming sound came from the door and the grid returned. He turned quickly to see Chaud brake in front of the doorway and curse, slamming the wall with his fist.

"Go on, Lan!" his dad encouraged, as the other Officials took a look at the control grid.

"I can't leave you behind!" Lan protested, but his father shook his head.

"Don't worry about us! We should get through this thing before too long. We need someone to go and do whatever they can, as soon as they can! Now move!" Lan nodded, and quickly ran up the stairs.

At the top, he swallowed audibly; he was facing a corridor almost identical to the one he saw in his dreams. He started running, a little nervous about the creature he was going to encounter at the end, just hoping it looked nothing like what he thought...

--

...and he found himself in a small, empty, well-lit room. Looking around, he saw no creature, but many black walls that were clearly supercomputers running at top speed, judging by the loud humming noise being emitted from every wall; the only decoration in the room was a series of electric cables flowing to and from every wall.

"I thought I'd be seeing you here, Lan Hikari!" Lan jumped at the familiar voice, looking around for its source before a wall in front of him lit up with Dr. Wily's image, his face twisted into an evil grin. "Think you can stop my army, do you? Well, think again! You'll never manage to stop the main control unit!"

"Bring it in, Wily!" Lan snarled, looking around for a jack-in port. "I'm not afraid of you, and I'll destroy whatever you've got here!"

Wily laughed. "Well, I welcome you to try. You'll find a jack-in port to your right, in the center of the wall. Best me if you can!"

Lan blinked, and, looking to his right, found a jack-in port ready for him. He brushed off Wily's arrogance, taking out his PET. "Megaman, you ready to go?"

"You know it!" Megaman replied. "Let's take Wily down!" Lan jacked in, sending Megaman into the computer's network.

Upon entering, Megaman looked around, but was surprised to find no large structures, no viruses, nothing of the sort. The area wasn't even lit properly.

"Lan, I think it's a trap! There's no control unit around here!"

A voice laughed. "Foolish Megaman..." Megaman tensed, and turned toward the shadowed area, as footsteps started echoing from the same region.

"This may be a trap... but the control unit is right here, inside me. Come and get it, if you want it..."

"Who are you?!" Megaman demanded, aiming his buster in the voice's direction. "Show yourself!"

The voice laughed again. "Ah, but Megaman... you already know what I look like."

The figure finally stepped from the shadows, and Megaman gasped. Walking toward him, and plugged into numerous gray power cables, was a Navi that looked almost exactly like him, from the blue suit to the color of the hair, but the face was twisted into an evil smirk. It smirked wider when it saw Megaman's shocked face.

"I look pretty good, don't you think?" the clone asked, as Megaman stared.


	10. Chapter 10: Megaman, Meet Megaman

Megaman Battle Network Omega

Chapter 10: Megaman, Meet Megaman

"Who are you?" Megaman demanded of his look-alike. "What's going on?!"

The duplicate gestured to himself. "What you see here is the pinnacle of engineering and compression... everything you are and so much more."

He smirked evilly. "I am you, Megaman, built from your blueprints and components, but enhanced beyond your wildest dreams. I am Megaman Omega... but feel free to call me Omega for short."

Megaman raised his buster defiantly. "We'll see just how enhanced you are!" He attempted to fire, but before he could even blink, Omega had rushed forward and pointed his buster upward, where it fired harmlessly into the air.

"Come on, I'm trying to monologue here." He swiftly punched Megaman in the gut, sending him flying backwards, where he landed hard on the ground many feet away. "Now sit and listen like a good boy."

Megaman grabbed his stomach and slowly tried to stood up. "You... you must be using the Gamma program..."

"You're smarter than you look." Omega smirked and walked forward. "But you're a bit off. What I'm using is the refinement and perfection of the Gamma program. The Omega program... so named for being the final, ultimate advance. It's made me more powerful than you could ever dream of being."

Megaman managed to get back on his feet, staring defiantly into Omega's eyes. "So... the spy in SciLab... he took my blueprints?"

Omega laughed again, amused. "And here I thought you were getting it. What's this business about a spy?"

"Don't play dumb!" Megaman called out, firing his buster at Omega, who dodged easily; Megaman continued, undeterred. "The WWW has a spy at SciLab! That's how they broke into the Mother Computer!"

Omega burst out laughing, much to Megaman's derision. "You people are too much... something bad happens at SciLab, and you immediately turn on your own! And from here the plan seemed so obvious."

"How else could you get those codes?! The only people who could know about the workings of Gamma are SciLab and... and..." Megaman blinked, finally coming to a realization.

"Give him a prize, folks," Omega laughed again. "That's right. SciLab's partner in development, Thinking Big Industries, was nothing but a dummy corporation set up by the WWW! You were never protected from us, not for an instant!"

Megaman tried to wrap his head around this plan. "But... why? Why would the WWW help develop a security system for SciLab?"

"That certainly wasn't our intention," Omega replied, walking toward Megaman again, who got into a defensive position. "But when SciLab offered to use the program to shield themselves uselessly... well, how could we resist?"

He grinned evilly once again. "No, the goal of creating the Gamma program was solely to create me. I am the end result of years of planning and hard work." He raised his fists with pride and triumph. "Myself, the control center for a superpowered army, and the most powerful Navi in existence! I am the most perfect weapon ever created!"

"You're full of it, is what you are," Megaman shot back. "Too bad for you, but I've got a trick up my sleeve too! I'm still stronger than you!" He looked upward, toward Lan. "Lan! Do it now!"

Not thinking twice, Lan quickly activated HubStyle; Megaman glowed a bright white, then reverted to his more powerful form he used on the first clone. Aiming to demonstrate his strength, he dashed forward and punched Omega in the neck; as Omega grabbed his throat, choking, Megaman grabbed him by the arm and swung him into a nearby wall, where he crashed heavily.

Megaman grinned, feeling confident and ready to dish out more pain, when Omega started laughing; it started low, but grew louder and more sinister as he stood up and dusted himself off.

"You poor deluded fool... that's your ace in the hole, the one that will save the day?" He grinned, and jumped on top of the wall he had hit in a single bound. "Perhaps you didn't understand the phrase 'everything you are and more'!"

Megaman's eyes widened. "No... that's not possible! How did you even get that data about me?!"

"That information was obtained by our good friend Swordman," he replied, his body slowly starting to glow yellow, "extracted directly from your body. We know all about the DNA encoded into your body, and your partial fusion with your operator... and I'll do you one better!"

He suddenly flashed bright yellow, and Megaman cried out and had to divert his eyes. When he looked back, Omega was still glowing yellow; like Megaman, he too had shed armor in favor of a battlesuit, but his hair spiked out in all directions. His evil grin remained, even wider than ever.

"This is MY HubStyle form, Megaman!" he called out. "Even more powerful than your own, and I don't rely on an Operator to activate it!"

Megaman looked up at him, panicked, as Omega leapt down to the ground. The mere force of impact sent a shockwave through the Netspace that knocked Megaman off his feet; an instant later, he was sent flying by a powerful kick to the jaw, skidding to a stop on the ground many feet away.

"How do you like it? Makes you feel a bit insignificant, doesn't it?!" Omega rushed forward and grabbed Megaman by the collar, kneeing him hard in the stomach before throwing him hard back into the ground.

"Ughh..." Megaman groaned. He could feel the HubStyle connection slipping away; he needed to maintain it, but it was a hassle even to get up. He got on his knees, but a sneering Omega stomped on the back of his neck; he cried out and slumped to the ground, as his HubStyle disappeared completely.

"Agh!" Lan, in the real world, collapsed to the floor, sore and in pain after the loss of HubStyle, but still straining to watch his PET.

"Pathetic... only a few blows and you're down for the count." Omega lifted Megaman up by the collar once again, punching him in the stomach. "Guess that's the price you pay when you're the perfect fighting machine."

"You... you won't get away with this..." Megaman managed. "Even if you take the Net with your army, people will move away from it... find something else... life will go on without you!"

Omega sneered once again. "Ah yes... and that's where part 2 of my genius plan comes into play." He chuckled lightly.

"It's true that my reign will be limited to the Net in this form... but the minions of the WWW are working on something else. A battle body, made especially for me to inhabit... one that can bring my phenomenal powers to the real world! I'll take the planet by force, all by myself!"

Megaman's eyes widened. "What? You're... crazy!"

"Now hold on one moment!" Dr. Wily's voice cut in, much to Megaman and Lan's surprise. "What's going on here? I never approved any sort of battle body, you arrogant..."

Omega laughed derisively. "Well, that doesn't surprise me in the least, old man... because you are no longer in charge of this operation."

A cry of surprise was heard from Dr. Wily; Lan looked up at the video screen, to see two WWW guards forcefully grab Wily's arms.

"What is this?!" Wily demanded. "You traitor! I gave you life, I gave you purpose! This is how you repay me?!"

"A child, Dr. Wily!" Omega responded. "Twice now your plans have been laid to waste by a mere child, even with the world's best technology at your side! You are a failure in your position!"

Omega flexed his bicep, smirking. "The WWW needs a leader who will not fail... one who will lead them to an age of true rule and prosperity... one who is perfect! And that leader shall be me!"

"Curse you, Omega!" Wily shouted, as the guards carted him off to who knows where. "You will pay for this treason, I swear it!"

With Wily's voice gone, Omega turned back to a very surprised Megaman. "Of course, I'm not quite perfect yet... but that will only take a minute to fix."

"What are you planning now?" Megaman shot out, as he struggled against Omega's grip fruitlessly; he didn't have nearly the strength he needed to get free.

"I haven't told you about my other function, have I?" Omega inquired bemusedly. "Quite the multi-tasker, I am... I also have the ability to absorb powers, or components, from other Navis... because there are certain parts of you that I need to get from the source."

He gestured to the numerous power cables behind him. "Right now, my power is so great that it must constantly be cycled and replenished... my body is not complete, not equipped to handle the power. Which is why we hatched a plan to deceive you, lead you here to me." He smirked. "But once I get the final components from you... nothing will be able to stop me. And there's nothing you can do about it."

He placed his hand to Megaman's chest, and it started to glow. "It was nice meeting you, by the way..." Omega grinned and glared evilly, as Megaman desperately tried and failed to think of a way out of this situation. He could do nothing but close his eyes and wait.

Instead of feeling the life sucked out of him, however, Megaman felt himself being dropped to the ground. He opened his eyes and looked up at Omega, who was grabbing himself in pain. Looking further, he saw that one of Omega's power cables was sparking violently, and an instant later it exploded, disappearing completely. Megaman blinked and stared, confused.

"Looks like you two need a hand against this guy," called out a familiar voice. Back in the real world, Lan looked up to see Chaud standing over him. He held a smouldering, sharp piece of guard robot in his hand, and one of the cables had been violently separated from the wall.

He offered his hand to Lan, pulling him up. "You alright there?"

Lan nodded, leaning against the wall. "A bit worn out, but I'll be just fine... need to focus on Omega..."

Chaud handed Lan the sparking, severed cable. "You'll want this. Connect it to the expansion port on your PET." Lan nodded, as Chaud turned and headed off. "I need to help the others, they're still fighting off guard robots. Go get 'im, Lan."

Lan nodded. "Thanks, Chaud." He took the cable he was handed and shoved the wires into the expansion port, which caused the screen to flash a bright white.

Back in the Net, Omega finished shaking off his pain, then looked down at his hands, flexing.

"What is this? What's happened to my strength?!" He looked over at Megaman and did a double-take. Megaman's HubStyle had returned, as had his strength, and he now emitted a faint white glow similar to Omega's. He made a fist and looked down at it, grinning.

"Oh yea... this is much more like it." He turned and looked toward Omega, whose face was contorted in anger. "Time for the second round, Omega!"

"This changes nothing, whelp!" Omega shot back. "You may have some of my power, but you're still nothing compared to me!" He formed a Long Sword and ran toward Megaman.

"We'll just see about that!" Megaman retorted, making a Wide Sword of his own. The two blades connected with a mighty clang, and the battle began once again.


	11. Chapter 11: Megamen Clash

Megaman Battle Network Omega

Chapter 11: Megamen Clash

The two powerful Navis clashed swords again and again, each trying to get the upper hand. Whereas Megaman had been highly outclassed just minutes before, he and Omega were now just about an even match, a fact that was causing Omega to rage.

"This is absurd!" he yelled out, taking an anger-fueled swipe at Megaman; he bent backwards to duck and kicked Omega in the stomach, knocking him backward. "You... I should still be more powerful than you!"

Megaman smirked and dashed forward. "Oh, no doubt you're stronger than me, Omega." He jumped right before reaching Omega, raining buster shots down on him as he stood up; as he came down, he brought his Wide Sword down on Omega, who blocked it. "Too bad you're such a crappy fighter, though."

"Shut UP!" Omega cried in anger, forcing Megaman back with brute force. "I'll show you strength, if that's what you want to see!"

Omega raised his own buster in the air, and Megaman watched as it began to open up from the sides, glowing more and more brightly.

"Crap!" Megaman called out, quickly assuming a defensive position. An instant later, there was an explosion of energy from Omega's buster, as giant rings of energy emitted from it, sweeping over the entirety of the Cyberworld, one after the other. The ground tore itself up, as many of the structures surrounding the two sustained heavy damage.

When the smoke cleared, both Navis were still standing; one was hunched over, breathing heavily, and the other was bracing himself from behind a Barrier, the last of three.

"Damnit, he's too strong," Megaman commented to himself. "We can't let him get another opportunity for a strong attack... looks like we'll just have to keep him on his toes!"

He dashed forward, hurling Energy Bombs in Omega's direction, who managed to dodge quickly. As he sidestepped the final explosion, he moved right into the path of Megaman's elbow; the impact sent him flying across the area, as Megaman smirked.

Emitting another cry of rage, Omega fired his buster full force at Megaman; not expecting another attack so soon, Megaman was hit with the brunt of it, and collided with one of the arena's walls. As he rubbed his sore back, Megaman grinned.

"Looks like you're a bit of a sore loser, Omega," he taunted, as his opponent stood up.

"That's because I DON'T lose!" Omega shot back. "You're about to find that out yourself, you brat!"

The two ran forward and clashed swords once again.

--

Back downstairs, Chaud, Dr. Hikari, and several other Officials were trying to hack their way through the high-security laser grid that had been eluding them for nearly thirty minutes.

"This is ridiculous." One of the Officials banged his fist against the device. "As soon as we hacked it to get Chaud through, the security just became ten times stronger. There's no chance of us hacking through this."

"Well, we're getting through it anyway!" Yuichiro exclaimed. "Chaud and my son are trapped on the other side, and one of them's fighting the WWW all by himself! We've got to do something to help!"

"Well, there's no way you'll be getting through like that," Chaud observed, as sirens went off for the third time so far. Another small security robot started rolling toward the frustrated group.

"INTRUDER ALERT," it verbalized, pointing its weapon toward everyone. Yuichiro looked down at the smoldering remains of the robot they had fried earlier, reaching in and grabbing a jagged chunk of metal. As the security robot tried to find its first target, Dr. Hikari threw the piece at high speed toward the robot; it pierced its domed head, causing the robot to spasm and spark.

"If we can't hack out way in, we'll have to use Lan's method," he stated, grabbing the flailing robot and lifting it above his head. "On three, I'm using this robot to take out the laser grid. Everyone, get ready to run. There's no room for slowpokes in that entrance there."

Everyone nodded, staring intently at the lasers as Yuichiro counted down. "One... two..."

--

"Three!"

Megaman laughed as he carved a third line into Omega's chest; Omega responded with a powerful kick to Megaman's jaw.

"What are you so smug about?" Omega demanded, as Megaman righted himself to land on his feet, cracking his jaw back into place as Omega fired a round of quick buster shots. "Every hit you get on me, I get one right back at you, fool."

Megaman suddenly vanished, using an Area Steal; Omega immediately looked up to see Megaman coming down at him, his sword extended, a blow that Omega deflected.

"That may be, but if I get one more hit on you, I can finish the 'M' I'm putting on your chest." Megaman aimed to punch Omega in the gut, but Omega grabbed his fist in a surprisingly quick move.

"What?!" Megaman cried out, before he was flung backward over Omega's shoulder, landing hard on his back. Omega laughed.

"I'm realizing one of the many perks of being a work in progress," Omega smirked. "Right now I have direct access to the computer that's constructing me. I figured it'd do me good to sacrifice a little strength to push my speed up a few notches."

He ran toward the now-standing Megaman at an amazing speed; Megaman moved to slice at Omega as he came forward, but Omega jumped out of the way and on top of a nearby wall. Before Megaman could get a proper look at him, Omega flung a bladed Yo-yo toward Megaman, which hooked onto him; as he screamed in pain, the Yo-yo pulled him back toward Omega, who punched Megaman hard in the face.

"I'd say it's working pretty well, don't you think?" he smirked, as he grabbed Megaman's body and slammed his back into Omega's knee.

"Yaahh!!" Megaman cried out.

Omega laughed. "Glad you agree." He tossed Megaman into the air, charging up a buster shot and letting it loose on Megaman at the peak of his flight.

Megaman crashed hard to the ground, in pain all over his body, with a sliver of his side missing from where the Yo-yo nabbed him. Groaning, he struggled to sit up, looking up at a laughing Omega.

"Give it up, Megaman," he taunted. "With me connected to my central computer, I can draw on my incredible strength, and maximize any advantage I have to, in the blink of an eye."

He smirked, raising his fist, which started to glow with power. "This unplanned annoyance you have presented is only that, an annoyance. In an instant, you will be defeated, and I will have the components I need to become the most terrifying, perfect Navi in existence."

As his fist glew a bright white, the rest of the room seemed to darken. Omega held up his fist, casting an ominous, evil shadow across his face. "So long, Megaman."

Omega leapt into the air toward Megaman, and as he landed, he slammed his superpowered fist into his opponent's body, casing a massive, blinding shockwave to ripple across the Cyberworld once again. When the smoke cleared, Omega looked down to what he had struck, and his eyes widened; instead of Megaman, his fist had split apart a tiny, Megaman-shaped doll.

"What the--?!" Omega looked around, before hearing a small noise above him. Looking up, he saw Megaman, damaged but still quite alive, holding a familiar shuriken in his hand and taking careful aim.

"Anti Damage..." was all Omega had time to say, before Megaman hurled the metal weapon down toward his opponent; it flew completely past his head, landing further back and completely severing one of Omega's remaining power cables.

"Gahgh!" Omega cried out, falling to his knees in pain as an electric shock overtook him. Moving quickly, Megaman landed on the ground and took out his Wide Sword once again, running behind Omega and severing all of the remaining cables attached to him.

"No... you... bastard!!" Omega cursed at Megaman, before collapsing to the ground, almost entirely drained of energy and racked with electric shocks.

Megaman walked over to him, stepping on his hand. "Looks like your big mouth led to your demise, Omega. Now you're going to fall, along with the army you're sweeping across the world." Megaman raised his sword above his head. "Any last words?"

"How about..." Omega's hand shot backwards, grabbing the nearest power cable he could grab. "Eat up!!" He thrust the cable forward, shoving it into Megaman's leg.

Megaman cried out in pain, as the power overloaded him with energy. Slowly standing, Omega grabbed several other cables, shoving each one into Megaman's chest. "How does it feel, Megaman?! Too much for you?!"

The pain Megaman felt was extraordinary; he felt as if every part of him was filling up to the bursting point, from his head to each toe. He and Lan screamed together, sharing the pain and the agony.

Omega smirked, as Megaman stopped screaming to catch his breath; he grabbed Megaman by the collar and picked him up.

"He who laughs last, I suppose," Omega grinned, as the light in the area began to dim. "I must admit, you put up quite a fight... very impressive." He raised his hand toward Megaman's chest, grinning. "All the more reason for me to acquire your internal schematics. And as soon as I do, you'll lose your ability to hold all that power and pop like a balloon... too bad, so sad."

As he reached toward Megaman's chest, he blinked; something wasn't right. Noticing that the lighting in this area was dimmer than before, he realized a bright light was coming from below; he looked down to see Megaman's buster glowing with an impossibly bright light.

It clicked immediately; Megaman had somehow found a way to send all that power into his buster, for one massive attack. Reacting quickly, Omega punched Megaman in the gut and knocked him back, while jumping backwards. An instant later, however, he felt something rather heavy hand on him; he looked up to spot an Official Navi trying to attack.

"You!" he called out like a curse, throwing the Navi off of him; as soon as he stood up, another Official Navi attacked him from behind. Megaman managed to lift his head up despite the pain, wondering what was going on, before he felt a set of hands lift him up. He looked upward to see a familiar, shades-wearing face.

"Protoman!" he exclaimed. "How did you guys get here?"

"If you're thinking of unleashing a masive attack with that thing, I'd do so now," Protoman spoke, ignoring Megaman. "Omega's distracted; this could be your only chance!"

Megaman looked back forward, to see Omega being pinned down by three Official Navis, while screaming for them to get off.

"What? But... those other Navis..."

"Are meaningless!" Protoman finished. "The entire Net is being destroyed by a mobile army! You've got to attack now, Megaman, it's your last chance! Do it!!"

With a roar of frustration, Omega unleashed all his strength at once, throwing the other Navis off of him. Looking over at Megaman, he only had time to widen his eyes.

"Eat up!" Megaman shot out, as he fired a massive, all-encompassing buster beam in Omega's direction.

--

Far away, in the Net area of Netopia, a single, crowned Navi stood before an army of dozens of Megaman clones, all marching forward toward the country's main computer behind him.

"You rats are destroying my kingdom... even so, we shall defend our precious nation until the very end!"

Making no noise, every clone in the vicinity raised its buster toward the central computer, charging them up. The king's Navi closed his eyes and waited for the end, knowing there was nothing he could do.

Expecting the sounds of explosions, and the pain of deletion, he was instead surprised to hear a mild clunk from before him. Opening his eyes, he watched in awe as the army that had wiped out his defenses started to keel over, nonfunctional, one after the other...

--

"Lan!"

Yuichiro held his son as Lan lay on the ground, his head propped up on his father's knee. Blinking a few times, he opened his eyes, and immediately groaned in pain. "Dad... ugh..."

"Lan, are you alright? Talk to me."

Lan smirked a little, trying to raise one arm and having little success. "Well, heh... I've been better..."

Yuichiro smirked, kneeling down and getting his son's arm over his shoulder; Chaud quickly rushed over and got under his other arm, and the two lifted Lan up, where he gingerly stood on his sore feet and legs. The trio started to slowly walk/hobble down the corridor, as the Officials ran ahead, looking around with flashlights for the exit; the fortress had lost power immediately after Megaman's defeat of Omega.

"Megaman... is he..."

"He'll be fine," Chaud cut in. "He's in about the same shape as you, but it's nothing some data restoration can't cure."

"Which is more than we can say for you," Dr. Hikari added, looking at the Hubstyle-inflicted bruises and cuts on Lan's body. "Now do you see why I was worried about you getting hurt?"

Lan laughed, which quickly turned into a cough. "Ah, c'mon... a small price to pay for saving the world, don't you think?"

"Well, maybe you could let someone else do it every once in a while, Lan."

Lan tried to shrug, but his shoulders weren't working too well; he brushed it off, along with his father's comment, as they wandered slowly down the hall. "So where are we going? Home?"

This time, it was Yuichiro's turn to laugh. "No chance. You're going off to the hospital, young man."

Lan grinned. "Worried about what Mom'll do to me when she sees what shape I'm in?"

"Hell no," his father responded. "I'm worried about what she'll do to _me_."

--

As the group walked out of the fortress toward the submarine that would take them home, a young man in a black suit, with unkempt red hair, watched them leave from a window high above.

"Run along while you can, you fools," he muttered to himself. "You think you've won, but you've only delayed the demise of you and your world. You people haven't seen the last of Lord Omega."

He turned and walked away from the window, back into the darkness of Omega's fortress.

--

Megaman Battle Network Omega

End Part 1


End file.
